Manifesto of Liberal Pseudoscience
	For someone who spends his career attacking politically-motivated science, Stephen Jay Gould does a pretty good job combining scientific research with politics in this book. Gould rambles on and on, attacking giants of modern science like Samuel Morton and Francis Galton, and never putting up any serious scientific conclusions of his own. Gould presents fabricated objections to serious research and selectively excludes studies that make a clear correlation between intelligence and brain and skull size as well as differences in brain size between the human population groups and correlations between brain size and class. Gould only ridicules the most outlandish claims of scientific racism and refuses to pick on findings that have been proven correct. For anyone who has no knowledge of biology, this book will give them a very distorted view of the entire science. Stephen Jay Gould is a paleontologist; evolutionary biology is an amateur field for him, and it would be best if he, as well as all other crypto-Marxists who wish to blend science and politics, stay out of it


Sophie's Choice Gone Wrong
	This is the story of Stingo, a 22 y/o aspiring writer in NYC in 1947 who meets a pair of lovers, Sophie and Nathan, at his boarding house and is drawn into their dysfunctional relationship, falling in love with both and witnessing their self-destruction.  Nathan is a mentally deranged and drug-addicted genius.  Sophie is a haunted Polish survivor of Auschwitz.  Her story unfolds as she confides to Nathan the awful truths of her unwillingness to join the Polish resistance, her eventual capture over a small infraction and her heart-destroying choice when she arrives in the camp--she must decide which of her children will live and which will be sent immediately to the gas chamber.

While Nathan and Sophie are both fascinating, fully-realized characters with terrible obstacles, Stingo, the narrator, is about as imbecilic a person as ever an author has entrusted his narrative to.  Despite his thirty or so years of perspective on the events of '47 which he is relating, he seems to possess little or no wisdom about them, no intriguing viewpoints about his life or his friends' tragedies, and his actions and attitudes at the age of 22 are so immature and superficial as to be almost unbearable.  The novel is far too long--it could be nearly cut in half and only benefit.  The narrative style is foolishly ponderous, far over-written, especially in the first half.  And in the end while the structure of narrator/observer seems like a fine choice in the abstract, the specific narrator and his terrible lack of wisdom only interferes with the heartbreaking story of Nathan and Sophie.

In the end, the narrator never even approaches the key question in my mind:  why did Sophie so quickly choose Eva to die rather than Jan?  A lack of true understanding of what would happen to the girl?  A blind panic?  A preference for her son, the sort of harmless preference many parents may harbor that is never important because we are never asked to choose?  It is this having chosen which seems more than the other tragedies to have really destroyed Sophie, and yet it's glossed over in the narrative.  In fact, it's followed by Sophie and Stingo having an endless night of 'fu---ng' as the novel would put it.  Really?  Almost hard to believe Sophie could get it together to have peremptory sex after her drinking and her terrible revelations.  She uses sex to escape with her lover Nathan, but it's hard to imagine this all-night sexcapade Stingo relates.  Could it be that Styron only knows how to connect people through sex?

How this could be considered one of the greatest American novels of all time is a mystery to me.  The potential is there, but only a truly talented, dedicated editor could have rescued the book from itsmany structural and linguistic failures


Awkward writing makes a bad story even worse.
	Middle-aged Gracie is a typical Hollywood wife, right down to her botox injections and designer wardrobe.  When her husband dumps her after almost ten years of marriage, Gracie finds herself without love, without friends, and most importantly, without status.  (But at least she's still got the money!)

Actually, most of what I know is from the dust jacket since this book was too torturous to finish.  The plot is predictable and uninteresting and is littered with so much name-dropping that sometimes it's hard to follow.  The characters are taken straight from Stereotype 101 and are so badly written that they're impossible to relate to.  The writing is ponderous and lumbers along awkwardly, lacking polish, wit, or interest.  Especially irritating is Grazer's insistence on using Gracie's name as much as possible.  For example:

"Gracie thought about it; they'd never been to marriage counseling.  Gracie had gone to counseling in the beginning of their marriage - there were many issues to overcome.  More or less her personality issues - the fact that Gracie had too much personality.  Gracie said and did pretty much what Gracie pleased, in the beginning.  Before Gracie learned The Way of the Wife" (p 38).

I lost interest after about 20 pages, plowed my way through 40 more, then gave up.  It's very obvious that this is a poorly-veiled autobiography (Grazer/Gracie) and that as a Hollywood wife, Grazer DOES have the connections and clout her protagonist lacks or this book would never have been published.

Definitely not worth your time


Poor Form - Lacks Original Research
	As the reviewer from Jackhorn, KY stated, this book lacks original research.  If you read the section on the "house church movement" and then go to the website for The Homechurch Homepage, you will see that Mr. Wolfe hacked away at many of the articles on the site to obtain his "research."  For the many quotes he used from the website, not once were any of the authors contacted by Mr. Wolfe in order to do any original research.  If he had done so, he would have come away with a different take than he wrote in his book


aweful
	bought book flipped through for 5 minutes, found good use starting a woodfire. all the info contained can be had for free on the internet. if youve been trading more then 2 days you already know more then the scope of this boo


Reinharts disappointing hyped coffeetable bread book.
	As a professional, certified chef and baker, I am also an avid baking and cookbook collector. After seeing that this book won and the James Beard and the 'IACP Cookbook of the Year' awards -both prominently displayed on the cover of this book- and after reading the 'too good to be true'-reviews on Amazon -some reviewers sound so exalted and in trance as if Peter Reinhart is the Jesus Christ of Bread- I finally decided to buy this expensive book.

What a dissappointment! For all those blindly following Reinhart as he were the Saviour of True Bread, wake up! Reinhart's book is simply flawed. Compared to other bread books, it's even a quite average book. But one that is luxuriously packaged. A lot of hot colorful expensive air. And it's expensive not because of the info and exlusive bread knowledge in it, but because of the super luxuriously editing. This is a book for book enthousiasts, not for bakers, professional or home.

I see baking and cookbooks mainly as working tools, as information and inspiration. Not as eye candy. If you want nice pictures, buy an art book. A book on baking bread with these awards behind it, should give you tons of new info about ingredients and techniques, original insights, an appetite for baking, factual info, the newest and tested developments in technique... What you get here is a fluffed up egotrip. 47 formulas and ample bread info packaged into a shining 30-40$ publishing hype.

Don't get me wrong: this is a beautiful, expensive book. But one you don't use in the kitchen, and certainly don't smudge with butter but put on the coffee table in the living room to impress guests and have polite conversations about. But as a source of new information or enlightening up to date bread knowledge, giving pointers about using new bread ingredients combined with old proven bread baking techniques, as a working tool sweating near the hot oven at home or at a bakery, compared to other bread books, this book fails miserably info-wise. But it has a snappy lay out.

Jeff Hamelmans 'Bread, a Book of Techniques' and Rose Beranbaums 'Bread Bible' give the readers much more practical info and insight into bread baking. They talk more about the subject 'bread'. And not about themselves like Peter Reinhart clearly relishes. Mr Reinhart clearly sees himself as so important and interesting a person that we read in this book about his wife and their sightseeing in Paris. How about the bread info, the kneading, rising, baking, ingredient- and techniques info? I honestly prefer industrious bakers who pass on their baking knowledge clearly without having to read at which hotel room they stayedin. Bakers with such big ego's that think that readers of a Bread Baking book are more interested in the shopping experiences of the wife during 'a learning trip' to professional bakers on which she accompanied him, than in another bread formula's, should work in shobizz, not in a bakery or a culinary school. Big ego's with more talk than substance galore in the food industry. Reinart is, judging by this book, sadly also one of them. I don't see in a 1000 years Rose Beranbaum in one of her books rambling on about her husbands prefered color of ties or Jeff Hamelman writing in a bread book about the time he spent with his wife in Paris. Mr.Reinhart: your readers forked out 30-40$ for bread info, not your personal travel experiences. As you as a teachers no doubts sometimes say to a pupil: Stay with the subject! And the subject of this book, for which I paid is 'Bread and Baking. If we want to know about your personal life, we'll read an interview in People, if they find you interesting enough.

Peter Reinharts 'The Bread Baker's Apprentice' as a 'Bread Book' is simply a marketing creation. Smartly edited, but way too short on substance. There is not much new information on bread. Worse: there is not much info at all! In total for 30-40 $, you get exactly 47 formulas on 307 pages of which 2 color photo pages are simply ads for other books by Ten Speed Press, the editor or this book. Compared to Beranbaums 640 pages, Hamelmans 400 plus pages, that is a big difference for a big price. With Reinharts book, you get a lot of shining white surface that in other Bread books is filled with bread info. As a buyer of this book, you also pay for full page black-and-white and color pictures that are pure filler. See p. 3, 6, 26... And why is the beautiful model Fumie on the cover of a bread book and not mr. Reinhart himself or even ... bread alone? With Reinharts next book they will no doubt put Kate Moss in an apron and a bakers vest. Package the air attractive enough and the readers will swallow it and fork out the 30-40$. Never mind the content.

Let's talk a bit about the formula's. That should be an important part of a baking book, right? And they should be original and fine tuned, right? Sadly to say: nothing new or original here. Some aren't even fine tuned. And baking is all about fine tuning. Worse, almost all the formula's can be found in other bread books. And, most insulting for a buyer of this book, a lot of the mere 47 formulas (Reinhart uses this expensive word because 'recipe' propably doesn't fit into the marketing of this baking book) in this book are rehashed or directly derived from Reinharts former book 'Crust and Crumb'. Clever marketing and ba-da-bing! By the way, 'Crust and Crumb' has been reedited in 2006. At a fair price, I admit. So if you want your dose of Reinhart at a right price without the pomp, sc�nes of a marriage, without Peter Reinharts comment on the Eiffel tower so to speak... buy 'Crust and Crumb' and leave this luxuriously edited egotrip on the shelves. But before I buy I would also first flip through Beranbaums and Hamelmans bread books in the bookshop or in the Amazon shop. As for this book, you should ask yourself: 'Do I want a serious bread book or a nice coffeetable book?'.

Taking in consideration all the egostroking in this book and in reviews, as a baking book for the world market, this book is almost worthless. The universal accepted working standard in worldwide baking is metric weight. Like it or not, but that's a fact. You weigh your ingredients carefully by grams, kilo's etc. Reinhart visited French top bakers Poilane and Gosselin, clearly admires them and aspires to reach their level of baking. I don't think that Poilane measures in cups and ounces! But even then, let Reinhart measure in cups for the home market. But then have the decency to add the metric equivalent in the formula's itself for the rest of the world. This guy goes on and on about his wish to bake authentic European inspired bread like ciabatta, fougasse... About a Worldwide Bread Revolution! And then he refuses to use the most important tool to make these breads: the same language, the metric weight system. Rose Beranbaum places the metric equivalent next to the cups/ounces. It's a simple as that. Bread is a world food, so use the world standard for baking. If not, market your book mainly to the USA market and be honest and upfront about that. And don't give us that inflated hot air babble about a Worldwide Bread Revolution without using the worldwide accepted working standard, the metric wieght system! This big flaw makes the book almost useless for bakers outside the USA. The Worldwide Bread Revolution won't be for tommorrow if we have to use this book worldwide!

Next point: Reinhart advocates instant yeast over fresh pressed yeast. Every baker worth his salt (or yeast) will tell you that fresh yeast gives a far better taste, volume and texture. Yeast is a living organism. As 'instant yeast' it has been dried and put on the shelves for God knows how long. It's like you force a just woken up coma-patient, that has been dormant for months, years... to run a marathon. Fresh, pressed yeast is still alive and its taste and texture are a world of difference compared to 'instant' (aka dried) yeast. Try the difference between fresh yeast and instant yeast for taste and texture and fully developed rising at home, and judge for yourself. To place fresh yeast on the same level as instant yeast is preposterous for someone like Reinhart who spends days on his pre ferments! For scientific back up, you can always read the recently translated book of world renowed food scientist Herve This 'Molecular Gastronomy, Exploring the Science of Flavor' (Columbia University Press 2006).

And it gets worse. Reinhart frequently uses shortening instead of butter or olive oil in his breads. If Poilane hears this, he'll drop dead! Every baker knows that even a small amount of butter gives a much better taste and texture than shortening. Shortening produces a rancid/metallic taste and a slimy, unpleasant mouthfeel. Not to talk about health. Most shortening is choc full of trans fats which are much more unhealty than butter fat. Read Harvard's nutrition professor Walter Willets book: 'Eat, Drink and be Healthy' (Free Press 2001). New York has already picked this info up. Professional food writer and teacher Reinhart hasn't or doesn't care. For instance, Reinhart proudly declares -not as a joke- that in Italian bread you can use shortening instead of olive oil. In Italian Bread! Come on, let's be serious. And this guy teaches at the Culinary Institute of America! It's like he is advocating spam to put on the BBQ instead of beef! If that is the standard of baking that Reinhart uses, he'll have to wait a long time to reach the standards of a Poilane.

Then there is Reinharts Hygi�ne Problem. There is an international standard for basic hygiene in food called the Hazzard Analysis of Critical Control Points (HACCP). Reinhart as a professional tutor and teacher must no doubt know the HACCP by heart. The first thing in hygiene that an apprentice baker learns, is that before even touching ingredients, he must remove all the rings on his fingers. Because the place underneath a wedding band for instance, is the place where the filth gathers and bacteria feast. And kneading dough with all that filth underneath a wedding band that you keep on, is not only very dangerous for the health of customers, it is simply not done for a baker. I like my bread without filth baked in, thank you very much! In the school where I earned my diplome in baking, if a student had a ring on during practical class, he had to leave the class immediately and he lost important points for his exam. Yet we see professional teacher and Bread Book Author Reinhart kneading dough WITH HIS WEDDING BAND ON! See p. 36-37, 82-83, 255, 245... Unforgivable in a 'professional' baking book. And all the more in an expensive book that won the James Beard and IACP awards! Has anyone of the juries of the James Beard Foundation and the IACP, any basic knowledge of food hygiene? Has nobody seen this cardinal sin against food hygi�ne in a so called 'professional Bread Book'? One other thing, for a bread book that pretends to be world class, there is no word about gluten-free bread. Not one formula. And this while more and more people are allergic to gluten (protein in wheat flour).

To end on a positive note, one thing I found acceptable in this expensive coffee table book, was his 55 pages with the 12 stages of bread. But, fellow reviewers, you can find all this info and more, and explained more clearly, more detailed and to the point, in Hamelmans 'Bread' and Beranbaums 'Bread Bible'. And it doesn't take 55 pages of expensive high quality shining white paper. Peter, take out all the white empty space, learn to write more clearly and to the point, and you can say the same thing in 20 pages. Which leaves you 35 pages for more formula's for example. But if you haven't any formula's left or are preparing a new book, then, yes, by all means stretch the 12 stages of bread to 55 scarcely printed pages instead of 20. Why make it simple if you can make it seem difficult, impress your not so knowledgable readers and in doing so stroking your own ego?

So despite all the hoopla, hyped reviews, near hysterical praise and important awards, this is simply a too expensive, show off-book. It's like the tale of 'the King with no Clothes on'. Somebody has to yell: 'Hey, wait a minute!'

If you want good books on bread baking: buy one by Jeff Hamelman, Rose Beranbaum and Bernard Clayton. You don't get a model on the cover, but the content is all the better. And in a bread book, isn't content more important than packaging


History of the Dictionary
	"This has been a story of an American soldier whose involvement in the making of the world's greatest dictionary was singular, astonishing, memorable and laudable - and yet at the same time wretchedly sad." - Prologue.  Well, that certainly could have been the story.  But what it was was a history of the dictionary (as in "the history of the horse") with W.C. Minor's contributions finally gotten to on page 116 or so.  Winchester, the author of several other books I'll avoid, also seems to suffer from the common malady - or unwillingness - of not knowing how to end a book.  So the last fifty pages sink the poor reader into...the history of insanity/dimentia/Alzeihmer's, whatever you want to call what Minor suffered.  Whereas I should have shed a tear when the main character - assuming it wasn't a dictionary - was laid to rest at age 85, I was fairly glad to see him go.


Good book but in the wrong way
	As a romantic comedy, Star Wars is a failure.  As a science fiction film, the Annie Hall is a complete disappointment.  Whatever other merits these movies might have, there are definitely areas that they are lacking.  Which brings me to The Rough Guide to Cult Movies:  as a reference book, it is highly suspect.  What's notable is that Annie Hall fails as sci-fi because it doesn't try to be that genre; The Rough Guide fails at the very category it aspires to.  Which is too bad, because it is often an interesting read.

The failure starts at the beginning of the book with a definition of cult movies that is so broad as to be meaningless.  We then a series of chapters representing various "genres", some of which are valid (science fiction, westerns, horror), some of which are ridiculous (Animals, Food, Nuns) and some of which are not even true genres (dubbed, independent, straight-to-video).  After this, we get various miscellaneous topics that are thrown in without rhyme or reason, such as a list of top movie grosses followed by presidential movie trivia.

The movie descriptions are often amusing, although there are numerous errors (such as misstating Geoffrey Rush's role in Pirates of the Caribbean), even more omissions (every reader will find his own; one example is that Unforgiven is missing from Westerns) and plenty of movies that are really miscategorized but seem only placed in a specific genre to fill it out.

What saves this book is, even though it fails as a reference book, it is nonetheless entertaining.  I am therefore giving this two stars instead of one.  It's a rather useless book, especially if you want to learn more about movies, but if you do pick it up, it is probably the most entertaining two-star book that you're ever likely to read.


Irrational hatred with authoritative sounding documentation
	Another farce to feed irrational hatred with authoritative sounding documentation... If you dig that sort of thing... there are tons out on the market...Unfortunately they don't come with disclaimers. like one would get when reading a book on the occult... People tend to go for books that support their bigoted view, and this is a fine example... it is a lucrative business in the united states to see what is en vogue and write a book of it.... It is a living. When the Da Vinci code was written it was a craze everyone had to write the idiot's guide to the code, how to interpret the code etc etc.... I am not surprised of a book like this and certainly there is no accounting for integrity or lack thereof... people write for years even for the NY times before others discover their plagiarism.... or in this case the secret agenda.... before long we will all be drafted to support capitalistic oligarchies err democracy abroad...


your head will split open and ooze goop after reading this
	All I can say is pass me some aspirin. This is a dozy of a bad novel. As it says on the dust jacket, a Supreme Court law clerk grabs a petition and ends up becoming deceased. Its up to the brother to uncover the truth by finding the real killer who had let a poor black man rot away for a crime he did not commit. At the same time the brother contends with mysterious bad guys out to get him and stop the unearthing of the evidence. Not only does he deal with his family, but his brothers friend, a sexy young law clerk herself and the duplicity on the bench she works for.

And that's only the start of the plot.

Its really pretty bad, it descends into mired pretensions and goofy resolutions. The characters are so shallow that you are left with little notion of who they are except for a faint nasty after taste over their conceded ways. Baldacci is along with James Patterson and Dean Koontz one of America's worst authors. If you want an author who writes on a similar vein to this, try one of Harlan Coben's last four or so stand alone thrillers with out the character Myron Bolitar in it. Or for a more sophisticated read, look for Denis Lehane, he wrote the amazing Mystic River, but his PI series located in Boston is pretty good as well.


Confused Apology for Japanese Militarism
	I must say that after reading this book, I am more confused than ever as to the origins of the war between Japan and the US.
The book starts in 1936, although most knowledgable people know that the march to war really began with the Japanese seizure of Manchuria in 1932.  The author continually repeats the refrain that "Americans don't understand the Japanese mentality and culture", and it was this "misunderstanding" that led to the war.
It is true that Toland defines the Japanese term "gekokujo" as being some sort of "insubordination" that led to the Kwantung Army to feel it could move, presumably without orders from Tokyo, into Manchuria. However, Toland does not explain how this could happen. There is little description of the power structure in Japan, we do know that there was some attempt to create parliamentary democracy, but there were also the giant oligarchs who had much power, plus the military hierarchy.  Somehow, the military took control in the 1930's, but Toland doesn't really say how.   He describes in detail the "2/26" Uprising of young officers in 1936, and how they were willing to kill without compunction, and how fanatical they were, yet we are then told that they OPPOSED expansion into China, and that the repression of this coup attempt would lead to an expanded war in China.  I must say I don't understand this at all...Toland potrays them as militaristic fanatics, yet they seem to be "the good guys".  Weren't those who supported expansion into China also militaristic fanatics?  This is left totally unexplained.
Toland then goes on to describe the fatal "Incident at the Marco Polo Bridge" in 1937 near Peking (Beijing) which led to the full-scale invasion of China.  Toland says the government in Tokyo, again, had nothing to do with it, in fact both the Chinese and Japanese commanders on the spot tried to calm things down, but some undefined "hotheads" (possibly Chinese Communists) kept inflaming the situation. Somehow (without Toland telling us how), a decision is made by someone (not necessarily the "peace-loving" Japanese Prime Minister Prince Konoye) to mount a full-scale invasion of China.  An impression is left by Toland that the Chinese, particulary, the Koumintang government of Chiang Kai-shek was provocative and unreasonable.  All I know is that
that Marco Polo Bridge is within China, and it is understandable
that the Chinese would resent the Japanese military presence there.
After this, we move on to the atrocities of the "Rape of Nanking", which again, according to Toland, "somehow" happens, (Toland does admit that there were atrocities and between 200,000 and 300,000 Chinese were butchered by their "brother Asians" who claimed to be liberating them(?)). Toland says the Japanese commander at Nanking did not order any such behavior, nor again, did the government in Tokyo.  How then do thousands
of supposedly disciplined Japanese troops suddenly get it into their heads to do such things?  Toland doesn't give us a clue, other than his general statement that "westerners don't understand the Japanese". Toland also, in a way, tries to claim that Western opposition to Japanese expansion into China was "hypocritical" because of Western Colonialism in East Asia
(US in the Philippines; Britain in Hong Kong, Malaya, Burma, India; Dutch in East Indies; French in Indochina), however, by the 1930's the US had already agreed to give the Philippines
independence and the British were beginning to wind down the Raj in India was setting up an autonomous Indian government, so it was
apparent that Colonialism was already on its way out before the war.
All this makes me wonder about the various things he says in the book, and I would look for a better source on the tragic history of this period. I have read his books on the end of both World War I and World War II which are much better, so that adds to my disappointment


Repackaged Database Marketing
	The book is chock full of examples and anecdotes but really has no new worthwhile conceptualizations or insights to make it worth reading.  If you don't know anything about database marketing, then you will get something out of this book.  If you are familiar with the basic concepts of customer database analysis, loyalty programs and relationship marketing, there is nothing new here.  In fact a much better introduction to all those concepts is The Loyalty Effect by Reichenheld or Customer Connections by Wayland and Cole.  The subtitle mentions the dot com world, but the book has little to say about the Internet.  The book really does not cover CRMs (as oppsed to database marketing) in that it fails describe how CRM systems work and what database, modeling and communications platforms are required to implement them


Where are my red slippers?
	Oh.... my.... God!!!! There is another Patricia Kennealy running mad through the streets and shouting about high schoolish love fantasies that exist only in her mind. I thought one Patricia was enough. But after reading this book, I am faced with the frightening realization that there are TWO of them!

Also, what I find very disturbing is that this version of Patricia may be even daffier than the original version. After reading just 6 or 7 pages of this hallucination horror show it was evident to me that the author is suffering from a case of Patriciaitis and a dose of Kennealyism.

By the 40th page I was searching for my red slippers so I could click them together and get back to Kansas. Or anywhere else, as long as my copy of this book didn't make the trip with me. A pack of lies and a waste of paper and time. I would rather read Mary Poppins than wade through this endless journey of rubble.


Second rate reference book
	A rather toothless attempt at rewriting Strunk and White, or Chicago into  quot;fun. quot; Reference books shouldn't waste this much space on casual conversation. Get to the point--get Elements of Style, Elements of Grammar, and Chicago rather than this handbook


Poor parsing of concepts and confusing diagrams
	This textbook is more useful for the flashy (and admittedly very good) teacher's ancillaries. But this review is not for the ancillaries. It is for the text itself.

The text's treatment of proofs is very cursory and not rigorous enough. The diagrams for the algebraic problems are too confusing, compiling numerous different concepts into one problem. While I agree that students must learn to differentiate one property/theorem/rule/postulate from another, it doesn't make sense that most, instead of some, diagrams are over-complicated. Personally, I don't like the format with the examples, mainly because it downplays the necessity for students to become LITERATE in math, not just a good "example comparer." The text has little actual TEXT to speak of.

I have not been teaching HS for very long, but I do not like this book. I am not a textbook dependent teacher, but I do (woefully) recognize that students have poor study skills and don't reference notes all the time. I do not teach out of the textbook and I spend many hours planning lessons, lecture notes, my own examples, etc. I had many complaints that the problems were confusing, included too many ideas at the same time, etc. Some may be successful in "teaching themselves" from the examples, but I am very disappointed that textbooks no longer have TEXT. I may be a math teacher, but I understand the importance of reading and how it helps a person to process the material.

On the other hand, the teacher resources is a great set of worksheets, study masters, note taking guides, etc. Perhaps the authors spent more time on those resources instead of the text.


Was this a novel or a horticulture manual?
	The prologue of this book lead me to believe this was going to be a very touching love story of a woman losing the love of her life and finding love again.  I was disappointed, soon after, when it turned into a gardening manual and a tale about ghosts, with a sort of haphazard romance thrown in the middle-and then even that was disappointing.  I mean Graceland for a first date?  I noticed a lot of similarities between Roz and the mayor in Northern Lights, and Logan and Nate from that same book.  None of them can talk in complete sentences.  And Stella, who comes across as this loving mother, who puts her kids before anything else, works from sun up to sun down and is so smug that she thinks the whole business is going to come crashing down around everybody if she isn't there to oversee everything, even though the place has been successful for years.  There is no addressing the issue of moving on with her life after the death of her husband, she just does it. Unless, of course, it was in the last 50 pages which I didn't bother to read because I just couldn't torture myself any longer.  And I'm a big fan of Roberts.  I love her Quinn brothers books and a lot of her other work.  But this just stunk because I could really care less who the ghost is going to turn out to be.  I'm certainly not going to suffer through the last two books to find out.


DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY
	This book has taken photo after photo straight out of the Ikea catalogue! Obviously, the authors have decided that they have nothing to offer and opt instead to refer to Ikea's design and storage ideas. This book actually put me in a bad mood. Listen up folks, THE IKEA CATALOGUE IS FREE. Do yourselves a favour and pick one up, because none of these so-called "organization" books have anything to teach you that cannot be found at your local Ikea store. These authors should be fired. Shame on both of them


You're kidding me, right?
	Not insightful, not even humorous. I am willing to admit that maybe I just don't get his writing style, whatever that might be. I hope Mr. Rakoff gets into a new line of wor


Forget it.
	Ridiculous, convoluted and unresolved plot with main characters that have become predictable and boring.

Did Cornwell even write this one herself? If so, she missed a glaring discrepancy when she proofread: On page 216 Marino remembers Mrs. Paulsson greeting him at the door "wearing jeans and a soft pink sweater", but later when he tells Scarpetta what happened during his visit to the house he describes her as having worn black books and a camouflage shirt when she opened the door.

Perhaps it was the author's attempt to let readers think Marino only imagined the pink sweater scenario because he was too ashamed to remember what really happened. However, to this reader it comes across simply as a mistake the author forgot to go back and correct


Don't answer it
	When I reviewed THE STREET LAWYER recently, I mentioned that I've never put down a Grisham unfinished and that we should throw the man some props. For that book, certainly. For this one, nope. I read four chapters, 41 of its 391 pages, and gave up totally unengaged and uncaring about any of his characters or his plot. I hope he just had an off day or something, and that what he wrote later got back to what makes him so readable.


Most Boring
	I liked most of Jo Beverly's books.  In fact, she is one of my favorite romance writers.  That's why it's hard to believe she could write something so boring and contrived.  The premise -- saving an opium addict--- is good.  One could expect a lot of turmoil between the lovers.  But no -- it's all pretty smooth. The passion is tepid and not much else happens.  A series of "Rogues" from previous books is paraded before the reader without really adding to the story.  And the conversations are so boring that I simply had to skip them.  I guess this may be enjoyable to new romance readers who do not know better or hard core Beverly fans


poetry in Riis' How he oher half Lives
	How the Other Half Lives was written over a century ago as an expose' of the appalling living conditions in the tenements of New York City. The author speaks with a crusader's zeal and with so much detail that the reader can visualize these tenements, these streets, and these people as if they were living today. This is a grim and moving portrayal of the lives of the men, the women and the children that inhabit these loathsome neighborhoods of New York City in the late 1800s.  He so graphically describes the filth, the sunless and airless rooms, the crowding, and the starvation that these places palpably exist for the reader and bring a chill to any heart.  Riis has a genuine concern for the tenement situation and understands these people's plight. His pictures are touching and meant to vividly show their misery. He, for the most part, blames the money-hungry landlords for these crowded conditions: "How shall the love of God be understood by those who have been nurtured in sight only of the greed of man." (p. 266). He laments that the tenement is three quarters responsible for the misery of the poor. Then, after his extensive discourse, he offers three concrete cures for these dreadful conditions, something that many authors forget when they are enlightening readers.
Riis states his purpose for writing this book himself on page 297 when he says, "If this book shall have borne ever so feeble a hand in garnering a harvest of justice, it has served its purpose." The author apparently succeeded with his purpose, because in the flyleaf of this book the publisher tells us: "This book helped bring about new revisions in the housing codes of the major U. S. cities."
How does this book relate to adult education? By moving chronologically from the founding of America to the slums of NYC in the 1800s, are we to understand that education took a back seat to the accumulation of money during those hundred years? Certainly Riis posits that education is one of the solutions to this problem while at the same time implying that wealth accumulation and the lack of education has been the cause of this problem.  "Thus the whole matter resolves itself once more into a question of education, all the more urgent because these people are poor, miserably poor almost to a man." (p. 147). He does not forget that this "education" is not only for the poor people, but also for the wealthy landlords. "Clearly, it is a matter of education on the part of the landlord no less than the tenant." (p. 270). Riis' almost missionary language exhorts us to never allow greed to override a compassion for humanity.  "It is a fight in which eternal vigilance is truly the price of liberty and the preservation of society." (p. 233). The relation of this book to the other units of study in this course could be explained as an example of how low mankind can descend if education is not considered one of the major cornerstones of a society.
Although this book was exhaustive in its detail, it was easy to read while at the same time enlightening. I found myself enjoying the ranting tone and the fascinating lists of neighborhoods and the labels that Riis used for the different races. In a sense it reads like a Ginsberg poem; constantly hitting the reader with melodious lists of places and people from another era. Read these geographic names out loud and feel their rhythm:
Jewtown, Bandit's Roost, Double Alley, The Bowery, The Bloody Sixth Ward, The Fourth, Fifth and Tenth Wards,  Blindman's Alley, The Bend, The Battery, Little Italy, The French Quarter, Hell's Kitchen, The West Side, Bottle Alley, Frog Hollow, Poverty Gap, Murderer's Alley, Gotham Court, The Old Brewery, Old Africa, Potter's Field, Blackwell's Island Asylum, Rogues' Gallery, Penitentiary Row, Chinatown. The list goes on. To someone reared in rural America, this chant sounds like a song about another country.
Riis also has something to say about all the races of people that live in the tenements of New York City:
Chinaman (he can't be taught), (Chinese (coolie--laundry business), Polish Jew (coops himself up in his den with his thermometer at boiling), Russian Jew, Jew (money is their God), Bohemian (poor, but thrifty), Blacks (like to gamble, but they are clean), Greek, Hebrews (tailors, all of them), Dutchman, Irish (like to drink and have expensive funerals), German (order loving), Swiss, Pasquales, Russian, Italian (a born gambler; lighthearted and gay), Swamp Angel (thieves), Street Arabs (army of homeless boys), Tramps and Toughs (the world owes them a living),and the Celtics. I was enthralled by the street lingo and the colloquialisms and Riis' comments about every race.
I noticed one interesting similarity between the late 1800s and the present day. Riis says that the gap between the social classes is widening everyday. I hear people talking about the growing differences between the rich and the poor often these days. Does every generation think that is happening in their time?
Not only should this book be used by people researching New York City`s tenements, but it should also be read by everyone seeking a blueprint for social change. It is a reminder to show us how hopeless the human circumstances can become when man's greed overrides his concern for human dignity.


Damaged book
	The package the book came in was smashed. The book appeared as if it had been used. It took over 2 weeks for it to arrive. I wouldn't order any books from amazon agai


Inadequate
	Spend your money elsewhere. For someone who supposedly lives in the vicinity of Yellowstone he knows and sees little. To anyone who steps outside of the sealed up world of their car and even casually looks, the senses are all brought to life with sights sounds, smells, temperatures, textures and colors.  Cahill does not inform. He is not even a very good writer, for if he were, he'd do the same thing I did, huck the book into the trash. Go to Yellowstone yourself and hang out the windows of your car and even that simple pleasure will tell you how inadequate this book really is.


The binding is very bad.
	Got this book for my oldest daughter about a week ago and she reports the binding is very bad. Pages are falling out


Slow paced
	I recently read "I", "K", and "L" in succession.  Compared to "Innocent" and "Killer", I found Lawless to be slow paced (even though this edition finds Kinsey spontaneously traveling across the country) and the plot twists less surprising.  With others I've read in the series, I am usually hooked relatively early in the story line.  I was 1/3 of the way through this iteration before becoming mildly interested in the outcome.  Even the subplots were not overly attention grabbing (Kinsey has little contact with immediate family, ergo she substitutes others in her life--Henry, Rosie, Pitt family, the criminal elements in this book--as her family...).  I also found it hard to believe that some of the characters that appear in "L" could be so dim-witted on one page, and great possessors of vast knowledge with incredible powers of deduction on the next.  Anyway, there are others in this series I would recommend more highly ("M" being one of them)


Not a good book for a beginning geology student
	I had to read this book for an Intro to Geology course, and although I find geology to be fascinating, I had a very difficult time following this book.  The author uses a lot of technical vocabulary and is rather repetitious.  Although I understood what McPhee was talking about most of the time, I think it would have made a better film documentary than a book.  The author constantly went off on tangents and the overal organization of the book did not appeal to me at all. . .it would be more readable if written as a field journal because I could not even figure out when one day turned into another.  But the book did a decent job of presenting the bigger picture


I didn't like it
	Samantha seems a lot like Becky.  A young woman whose life is very out of balance and doesn't know how to face up to the consequences of her decisions.  Instead of staying at the firm and working out her "mistake," she runs away.  This is just like Becky hiding her bills.  And then she gets a totally implausible job, because she can't tell the truth - again like Becky.  Samantha doesn't tell the truth until the very end when the media coverage forces her to.

I agree that the firm would never have taken her back; they probably would have viewed her as a former lawyer who had a nervous breakdown and was in need of psychiatric care.  Samatha, like Becky at times, seems somewhat manic, in that she's frantic somtimes and makes major life decisions on impulse in a state of agitation.  just like Becky when she rushes after her sister on a hike for which she is totally unprepared.  Lithium, anyone?

I don't have an opinion on the housewife/lawyer "controversy," but I do think Kinsella's protagonists need to grow up


Too psychologized
	This is the first book I've ever returned. While a lot of what she does is admirable and does work (the "You" form instead of "Lord/He" works very well), two things make it unusable: constant use of "Beloved" for the word "God" or "Lord" becomes irritating very quickly, and she subjectively pops out the word "enemies" wherever it appears and puts in "fears." I wouldn't dare tell someone with AIDS or a refuge or whomever that their only enemy is their own fears, and even for others such overpersonalization doesn't work. The classic 137th Psalm was unrecognizable -- where did the dolphins come from


Just plain Awful
	Bad paper, Old advice. Just plain awful and a waste of Money.


Morrigan's Cross
	Just not my cup of tea.  Well written but as I said not my cup of tea..I will not purchase the others in the series


Better than you Sean
	Three things make me better than Sean Hannity:
1) I was actually in the US Military
2) I graduated college, unlike Sean
3) I don't believe that everybody who votes a certain way is a loser, or hates America.
Sean Hannity is a bunch of hot air. Just watch him on FoxNews, or listen to him for one hour. He is yet another of the current line of conservative commentators who believes that all people who vote Democrat hate their country and hate all Republicans.
Sean - stop labeling everybody. Every American has their own opinion


Dressed Up Postmodern Metafiction
	The first book of Auster's New York trilogy was originally published in 1985, and in 1994 was adapted into this graphic novel. I've never read the original (or any of the other parts of the trilogy), so I can't comment on Karasik and Mazzicchelli's adaptation. However, I can say that since I'm not particularly fond of existentialist or postmodernist literature (those two terms being the most common critical shorthand for Auster's story), this really didn't do anything for me at all. The story is basically an exercise in metafiction, and if you like that stuff, great -- I do not. It is dressed up (at least initially) in the mystery genre, but that's just window dressing. (There's a long legacy, especially in France, of cloaking novels and films of ideas in genre trappings (for example Alain Robbe-Grillet's two books The Erasers and The Voyeur, or the films of Jean-Pierre Melville.)

The story begins fairly straightforwardly: a reclusive writer of potboiler mysteries named Daniel Quinn lives in New York on his own since the death of his wife and son. A complete stranger calls him and thinks Quinn is a private detective named Paul Auster and begs him to to take his case. (The writer Paul Auster, and his family, shows up for one scene -- it's that kind of book.) Quinn meets with the strange man, who was raised in rather harrowing circumstances by his professor father, who was seeking to discover the true language of God. The father has been released from jail and Quinn is supposed to keep an eye on him and report. Everything starts to derail when he loses track of both the old man he's been following, and his clients. He spends several months watching the building and going crazy. Once he realizes they've disappeared, he finds his own life has disappeared as well. Obviously this is all somewhat about identity, but it's more about fun stuff like language, representation, and other tiresome postmodern subjects (as are the other two parts of the trilogy, which involve a man spying on someone, and yet another disappearance).

It has to be said that the artwork does an admirable job of treating the bizarro world Auster has thrust his characters into. The simple, heavy black and white inking is a perfect match to the material, especially when the representations become less literal and more symbolic. However, if your taste runs more toward things like plots and characters, this is probably not for you. Fans of Auster may enjoy this, but fans of the graphic novel form are probably going to be much less keen.


Dry, boring and unrewarding
	Paul Auster's City of Glass is perhaps the worst read I've experienced.  The story moves at a pace that would make a snail envious; the murder mystery plot is as thin as air and hardly resolves itself; we spend way too many waking hours with the main character sulking around his apartment staring into a toilet bowl in which he has just defficated--I kid you not.  The best part of this novel is the end.  I read with fervor to get to the end in hopes that the author would have the talent to tie everything together and make this experience somewhat valid; however, I was utterly and discustingly dissapointed beyond my wildest dreams.  To all the reviewers and critics who claim this book is a metaphysical, existential tour de-force, I beg wholeheartedly with my very life to differ.  I believe the author had no such thoughts in mind, had no direction when writing this disgrace of a work and it saddens me to see such an unentertaining, dry-dry-dry piece of fiction with one or two not-so-clever plot devices, gather such literary praise.  Like a Rorschach image you can see life, love, death, a myriad of wonderful symbols, and if you would like to believe that the person who put that ink blot on the page intended you to see all of that depth, intepret and dwell in that depth--coming to conclusions and reflecting ultimately on your own life, well, then, good for you.  But in reality, the person that made that Rorschach for you is Auster, and he just ambigoulsy splatted some ink on the novel pages before you with no ryhme or reason and you All bought it...hook line and sinker. This novel is an exercise in an authors ability to take us nowhere, show us little on the way and still receive praise, despite an ending which is refelctive of the entire work, in that it plain and simply: sucks


No help at all
	This book did not teach me anything and was a waste of money. page 364:  Principles of Long term investing:  "Chapter 8 shows that among the S P 500 Index returns, large value stocks have a small edge over large growth stocks."  Now look at Chapter 8.  "Of the 10 largest corporations, only 2  (Exxon Mobile and Citigroup) are value stocks."  duuhhh.  Now I know what to do.  I have a choice of two stocks.  If you already know all there is to know about the stockmarket, buy this book and pat yourself on the back for being so smart. If you know little, it won't add to your knowledge at all


Posing for high school seniors
	I bought this book to try to learn some useful poses for my subjects, and given most other people's ratings, I decided to give it a try.  However, upon opening the book my first thought was, "these all look like high school yearbook photos", which is exacltly what they are.  It seems that that's primarily what type of photography the author does and his book is geared almost exclusively to that market.  His main concern, which he stresses throughout the book, is creating a "saleable picture", and he keeps emphasizing the importance of pleasing mom, since she's usually the one with final say over the pictures.  A better title for this book would have been, "How To Take High School Senior Pictures".

Even then, most of the pictures are not very good, both in their original execution and in their print quality for this book. In addition, the poses are unnatural and awkward looking, and the book is filled with typos and grammatical errors.

To be fair, the author does suggest some useful basics of things to do and things not to do when posing a subject, but there is really very little useful information here.

So, if you're interested in learning how to take pictures that look like a Sears portrait, this may be the book for you.  However, if you really want to learn some useful techniques for posing your subjects in a more natural or more artistic manner, I'd steer clear of this book


Gary - Lost Christianities
	Ehrman's work is not for a person of faith. It does not take faith into consideration. It is a wonderful research project based on limited documents available - most forged and falsified; and none which can be validated. I read it as an immediate follow-up to his work "Lost Scriptures" - Books that did not make it into the New Testament. I was warned by my minister who is also a Bible scholar and has two Ph.D.'s - and my minister was correct. In Lost Christianities, Ehrman seems to make an effort to discredit our current books of the New Testament by implying that many New Testament books may be false, forged, translated incorrectly, altered to serve a purpose, etc... Ehrman clearly attempts to form a relationship between the New Testament books to those falsified books that did not get into the New Testament. Ehrman's Lost Christianities starts out strong, but ends weak to the point of losing and disinteresting the reader. If for nothing else, it is an attempt to test your faith, but in the end your faith will be strenghtened - if you have faith. The book leads one to believe that the author is as much a Bible critic as he claims to be a scholar. He does present all sides of the New Testament story and it is interesting how the New Testament was formed. However, the lack of confirmed and validated documents will lead one to begin to question if Ehrman is accurate or merely sensationalizing much like the media does. To save you the time and money, simply let your faith answer any questions you may have on the validity of the New Testament and how came to be. Ehrman and other Bible critics (ie., The DeVinci Code) seem to be profiting by creating questions about the truth and validity of the New Testament story. Save your money and give it to your church instead.
Gary


Incredibly boring
	I'm a Conan Doyle fan and found The Alienist to be a pretty good read, so I made the unfortunate mistake of buying this book in softcover without taking a gander inside. Carr seems to think he can ride his reputation for 316 pages without putting much thought into whether anyone along for the trip will get some enjoyment out of it. The dialogue is flat, the plot uncompelling and Carr relies on the near-endless use of exclamation points to inject some excitement!!! into this tale, which left me skipping pages at a time as it neared its conclusion because I couldn't bear to read the mangled sentences. This book has no climax -- just, thankfully, an ending. Spend your money on something worth reading.


Good satire, awful presentation
	I had read all about FSM before picking up this book and bought it as more of a conversation piece.

Well, suffice to say this will never get any space with my other books as it is very poorly put together.

Flimsy cover, flimsy pages, it's put together about as well as a children's coloring book.

I too was fooled by the default picture, I thought it was a nice hard cover with a bookmark ribbon like other "religious" texts.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Hey Amazon, change the default picture to the one which shows the book as is, a flimsy cover with a picture of a hard cover on it


S is for Slow Read
	Normally, I find it hard to put a Sue Grafton book down once I get started. Not the case with "S". I did not enjoy the plot about Violet and her abusive husand.  The main character Violet was too much of a stereotype - boobs, red hair, just a boozing slut over all.  I didn't get the whole thing about her brother and why he disliked her. The ending wasn't clear either. I did like the development of the relationships with the young girls exposing jealousy and how it ruined relationships over several decades. Most of the characters just weren't that interesting overall.

I missed her interactions with Rosie the restaurant owner and her neighbor, the handsome 80 year old baker Henry. Usually, there is an interesting man in the picture too - not here.
I would vote pass on this one.


outdated - thy name is the Crying of Lot 49
	So, being a fan of all forms of literature, more specifically challenging[faulkner], pretentious[d.h. lawrence] and original[kafka] works, I was surprised at how long it took me to get around to reading what's considered Pynchon's most imporant work.

Important 40 years ago, perhaps, but the test of time has totally obliterated the supposed wit in this one.  Oh man, the radio station is KCUF, boy, that's incredibly clever, I bet it's, like, something spelled backwards.  I fully understand what Pynchon was trying to accomplish with this work, to skewer extreme right wing nut jobs, among other things, all while giving us a story with no particular plot, no moral, no message.  I can understand it, but it doesn't mean it's worth my time, I didn't even finish it.  I read about half and then just dropped it to the floor.

I've read in numerous reviews of Haruki Murakami's work that he's a latter day, Japanese, Pynchon.  I don't agree, Murakami's ability to create a surreal dream-like atmosphere is amazing, Pynchon is a hack


Not Worthy to Bear the Name THE BEST AMERICAN POETRY
	This smugly-edited series has become a dreary example of careerist nepotism and features mainly short stories with linebreaks and jokey poems that are not funny.

Some choice awful lines:

Denise Duhamel: "Don't give into your cravings, you need to stay lean / So you can lift up your skirt as you prance and twirl..."

Kim Addonizio: "Better dead then fed. / He who laughs will not last. / Sticks and stones will break you,"

Thomas Lux: "that the eyes be gouged out / and replaced by hot coals / in the head, _the blockhead_,/ of each countrymen or woman who, / upon reaching their majority, / has yet to read MOBY DICK..."

Most of the poems herein, besides Franz Wright and Paul Violi among a scattered few, would have been better off as just titles than full poems. The big name poets featured have generally written better poems, the younger poets all seem to have some connection to the New School. It's incredibly disappointing: THE BEST AMERICAN POETRY 2006 could have been so much more. Instead, *it's* a joke


Presumed Innocent
	I thought this book was going to be a great Legal Thriller, but little did I know that it would turn out to be the worst book I have ever read. I expected a lot more out of Scott Turow, who wrote "One L", which I loved, but this book was plan boring. The begining started out slow and it never picked up from there! The worst Legal Thriller, ever


How did this book get published?
	From about the second page of this book, I was shaking my head in disbelief that anyone would publish it. The characters and their relationships are so poorly developed you are left with a blur of images lacking connection to one another. Add to that the stereotypical characters (the men are all violent and lusting either for girls or boys, the women are all "large-assed" or fat with the exception of Ella).  And the gratuitous sentence or two at the end of each section about various characters' sexual proclivities was so completely dumb, not to mention kind of repulsive (I like a good sex scene as much as the next person, but Tuck's descriptions are completely banal).
Oh wait, there's more. The Spanish is ATROCIOUS. It's hard to believe that Tuck had a translator for this book. It's pretty clear that whoever copy edited it neither reads nor writes nor speaks Spanish. Half the names are grammatically incorrect. Many of the words are just plain wrong ("vita" means life in Italian, not Spanish, for starters). I felt embarrased for the author. Does she know that her book is full of errors?
The one word that comes to mind when thinking about this book is: SHALLOW. I sincerely hope that readers don't mistake this book for historical fiction. The author clearly knows little about Paraguay and its people and history, and clearly doesn't care, from her superficial treatment of it.


meandering and plotless
	i was disappointed after this book was suggested to me. nothing ever happens. there are a lot of long winded descriptions and background and very little story


OMG!  This is so bad...
	I've read most of the books written by Greg Iles. I liked them all except Dead Sleep, which by the way was much better than this one!

Anyway, despite Dead Sleep, if I see a book by this author I haven't read yet I'd grab them right away without further thinking because I enjoyed the rest of his work very much.

So, when I bought Sleep No More I was prepared to stay up all night because I was certain it would be thrilling. WRONG!

The whole Mallory/Eve/Cole/etc thing is just not believable at all even though I set my memory and imagination open as the author suggests.
I still laugh when I think of the explanation of how Mallory gets into another person (she has to have sex and have a mindblowing orgasm). I should give Greg Iles some credit for this idea, a stupid one, but creative nonetheless.

As for the characters, I was so appalled by the paranormal plot that I couldn't care less about any of them. I read The Quiet Game and liked it, but the appearance of Penn Cage was just so blah because he's like a cameo in this book and didn't have a character development nor adds anything to this book.

In conclusion, I would not recommend this, especially to those who liked other books by Greg Iles.
Nevertheless, I'm going to continue to purchase other books by him because I enjoyed his other works very much and strongly believe he is one of the best fiction writers.


Not convincing
	This book tries to convince non-Christian skeptics but seems to spend too much time justifying orthodox perceptions and concepts of prayer and liturgy, without addressing fundamental objections


Not great
	This book is poorly written.  Although it is one of the most update-to-date versions out ther, it seems muddled and repetitive.  I was surprised at the number of grammatical mistakes and errors.  Clearly little time was spent editing this book.  I'm not sure how it got to be a New York Times Bestseller, outside of the fact that it is related to Harry Potter.  I'd advise going with a different biography


does too much and too little
	by focusing primarily on the history of the swimsuit Pollard's book does not address the larger issue of modesty in public dress as effectively as he might. And while the history of fashion sheds light on fashion, (i.e. swimsuits have observably become skimpier over a century) Pollard can offer no explanation except the caving in of Christian virtue. This is basically saying Christians have lost a culture war without explaining why.

While the initial exposition on what the parameters of Christian modesty mean Pollard provides no application for what a suitable example of Christian modesty would be. Furthermore, when push comes to shove he refers to the Westminster Larger Catechism for application rather than sticking to the biblical principles he espoused. Some of his cases are self-defeating. On one hand he notes that garments in biblical periods could be sleeveless and then states that the inexorable decline of swimwear in the west into sluttiness really began when sleeveless swimwear appeared in the mid-19th century.  Props for giving the topic serious consideration but as an exegetical study it is still wanting.

On the other hand, it's cheap so if you're not persuaded the research has been effective it won't cost you much


Prosaic....
	Personally I found this book to be little more than a GRE verbal refresher course.  Sure, it is objective and balanced but so impassionate that such a contentious issue seems like nothing.  I think you can strip away emotion from a social problem so much that it creates the question of, well, then, does this really matter?  In my opinion I feel this is what the author has done.  I was really disappointed in this book


the chicken soup for the writing-it-down souls
	This book may be as well called "the chicken soup for the writing-it-down souls".  The author illustrates her points by telling many uplifting stories.  However, if you are a self-help reader like me who is used to David Allen's "Getting Things Done", you may find that storytelling is distracting and not as convincing as it can


Just Another Book In This Genre
	The book claims to help you:

1. Say goodbye to aching joints, sagging skin and fatigue
2. Improve the quality and function of the genetic material in your cells
3. Ramp up your body's self-repair functions
4. Increase your stamina, endurance and sex drive
5. Dramatically improve your resistance to disease, including cancers
6. Have more youthful, radiant skin

You don't need to be a cynic to be able to tell that the claims are all inflated. Sure, you'll see some improvement if you have been leading a very unhealthy lifestyle, but for those of us who are already exercising regularly and eating a relatively healthy diet, some of the tips on progressing further to "genetic repair" will sound a bit too good to be true.

In fact, most of the advice and recommendations given in the book are not very different from that found in many other books on nutrition and supplement. The authors just gave all the info a "DNA twist". I stopped reading the book a few chapters from the end when it begins to talk about hormonal supplementation and some glowing testimonial on the author's services. All "natural"? No side effects? How long have the subjects been followed up and how long have physicians really practised hormonal therapy on otherwise healthy individuals? The results may be real, but how safe is it for the rest of subject's life?

Sounds like another one of those practice-promoting books in this genre. Disappointing


Use caution in laying all your hopes on yet another "cure."
	My almost-6 year old daughter was diagnosed with autism at age 2 and we took a multi-pronged approach, including things like supplements, a GFCF diet, and OT/PT/speech. After a year on the GFCF diet and many specialized supplements and no change in behaviors, we went back to a normal diet with standard vitamin supplements and continued her behavioral therapies.

Our close friends' daughter, now age 4 and also diagnosed with autism, took a similar approach, but even more strict, following the DAN protocol as well as the recommendations of this book, including chelation, a dizzying array of supplements, GFCF diet, OT/PT/Speech, ABA, etc.

While our child has made tremenous advances, or friends' child has not, beyond minor advances related to her age--at 4, she is still non-verbal, far from potty trained, exhibits many repetitive behaviors, and needs constant verbal and visual cues for the simplest tasks.

The point I am trying to make is that every child is different and no one, NO ONE has shown that one course of therapy cures or even convincingly improves a significant percentage of children with autism. Autism, as most of you likely know well, is a catch-all term. Our friends' daughter no doubt has a very different kind of pathology than ours. I have yet to really see a book or study address that fact first and foremost before offering a course of action, rather than immediately launching into predictions of one "cure" for a broad range of issues.

While I do think some of what the author recommends can be helpful (and it really may offer a tremendous help for some children with autism), some of the therapies (like chelation) can be very dangerous--in fact, I have yet to see one of the many families who tried chelation therapy see *any* improvement in their child's symptoms. I have seen more success with GFCF diets (for a small percentage of children), but the greatest success seems to come with comprehensive behavioral therapy.

I certainly understand where families are coming from--I have been there myself, but treating your child like a guinea pig and attempting to "cure" them with multiple substances that have had very little study/peer review in a desperate frenzy of worry is both dangerous to their bodies and destructive to their emotions. As with anything, balance is your approach will serve you and your child well.


very very disappointing
	don't buy this book, no substance only good for sale


Wow...
	.... you can get all three of these wacky books in one neat volume! Doesn't this hurt the bottom line at Hagee Ministries? What, has the pool of his mesmerized followers begun to dry up? It reminds me of when the band, KISS (aka Kings In Satan's Service) re-packaged their first three albums as "The Originals." At least in that case you had an extra track of "Rock and Roll All Nite", assuming you already had the album "Dressed To Kill." On the other hand, maybe Hagee Ministries was using the KISS model, assuming that it wouldn't hurt to have his drivel repeated in one handy, compact volume of fear


Steinbeck's Bait-and-Switch: A Good Writer Fails to Act
	I'm perhaps the only Steinbeck lover not to have yet read "Grapes of Wrath" or "East of Eden."  Instead I have focused on "Of Mice and Men" and his lesser known works, such as "To a God Unknown" and, my personal favorite, "Pastures of Heaven."  I've been enamored with his ability to vividly craft characters in particular.

When I began reading "In Dubious Battle," it appeared the most engaging of all Steinbeck's work.  Telling the story of American Communist party workers Jim and Mac, it begins with the story of hardscrabble Jim initiating himself into Mac's radical cell.  There is a great (and misleading) sense of intrigue - Mac and Jim travel by boxcar, work secretly through letters, go from secret contact to contact and finally arrive among disgruntled orchard workers.  Early on, the pace is fast, exciting, and engaging.

Suddenly, Steinbeck simply fails to deliver, leaving the reader wondering when he's going to pick up the pace again.  After Jim and Mac slowly initiate a worker's strike, I expected the sense of excitement to continue.  It simply never does.

Summary of "In Dubious Battle" - Workers get mad.  Workers get tired.  Workers get mad.  Workers get tired.  Workers get mad.  Workers get tired.

The rest of the book mostly concerns Jim and Mac talking - and talking - and talking - and talking.  And while their philosophical chats are mildly interesting at first, they simply repeat themselves for the rest of the book.  Most of the action takes place in the dark or far away from the narration, and most of the story simply concerns the strikers bickering over petty nonsense...

...and eating.  Steinbeck must have been peckish while writing this story, because at least a good 25% of the story concerns finding, eating, and (worst of all) TALKING about food.  There is plenty of action that Steinbeck could have shown during the story, but for some reason he prefers to focus on Jim and Mac endlessly walking from tent to tent in their encampment, discussing whatever comes to mind.

Steinbeck's sense of intrigue and social injustice is worth reading the first few chapters.  But I advise any reader of "In Dubious Battle" to take this course - after the strike is initiated, simply set the book down.  You won't miss anything.  Nothing of great import happens, and only a very few memorable characters ever surface, and they are lost among the sea of forgettable faces.

I suppose now I'll give "Grapes of Wrath" a go.  Perhaps if it isn't one of his "greats," it isn't worth reading


not an economic history of money
	This is the sort of book you get when an author writes on a subject with which he has only a passing familiarity, and lacks the confidence that the subject matter is inherently interesting enough to hold the reader's attention.  The result is a book that is ultimately unsatisfying.

One symptom of the problems described above is that large portions are devoted to subjects other than money.  For example, the author uses the first three pages after the introduction to describe Aztec ritual sacrifice in literally gory detail before proceeding on to the use of cocao beans as commodity money.  I think that's meant to be what they used to call in show business a "grabber," but for the reader expecting to learn about money, it's a distraction. Another problem is that the author's grasp of modern economics is shaky at best, and especially in the latter part of the book, he'll make a point and then repeat himself, much as an undergraduate trying to extend the length of a term paper that's run a few pages short.

And yet, there's also some interesting and oddly convincing tidbits of information here. The author states that L. Frank Baum's 1900 book "The Wizard of Oz" is really a parable about the need for a bimetallic dollar based on both gold and silver.  But even as it strikes you that this is an interesting bit of trivia, you realize that it's only a bit of trivia and has little larger significance.

If you're looking for a economic history of money, you should look elsewhere.  If you're interested in the cultural and sociological impact of money, this may be more to your liking, though I think it still falls short.


old-fashioned elitist boredom
	This is a fairly helpful book for those born before the '70s-- a time when "a yarn" wasn't an archaic term. Does it give some helpful hints?  Sure, there's the obvious ones like show don't tell and all characters have free will. But fiction has changed a lot since Henry James (thankfully), and this book might be better left unread. Plus, I don't buy the "only people who aren't well-read don't like it" argument. I've read nearly all the books mentioned and I still wish I never bought this book


Sluggish, Uneventful, Corny and Borrrrring
	I usually read Stephen King for his interesting ideas and imagery and expect his books to read fast and well. I've read three previous King books that have had the occasional long passages with overstated depictions of horror, doom, and grotesquery in order to immerse his readers into the tone of his story.  This one takes the cake because what is meant to read as terror and horror is really ridiculous and unimaginative. And this is exactly what "Insomnia" is. This isn't a spoiler, just the author's note: at the end of the book we read Sep. 10, 1990- Nov 10, 1993- three years in which King took to write this book.  Three years which were evidently wasted.

The other King books I've read were engrossing for their characterizations and character identification.  "Insomnia's" Ralph Roberts is certainly a character the reader could identify with.  He is strong, kind, has traditional gentlemanly views on aiding women in distress and regards them as beautiful and respectable. His counterpart Lois Chasse doesn't come across as identifiable. Instead she serves as a  secondary character who has no real flair or identity other than being in love with Ralph. King doesn't usually do that with his secondary characters.  Other characters with much smaller roles in this book come across as real and identifiable, like Ed and Helen Deepenau, the three bald doctors, and Ralph's numerous confidantes.

Then there's the whole abortion mess. This central political issue crumbles midway thru and seems to serve no purpose at all in the story. Though King does provide an interesting and seemingly objective commentary on the issue via Detective Leydecker (albeit with a tranparently pro-choice slant), it serves no relevance to the theme of the story but just hangs there on display used for no more than a story device.

I gave the book two stars because I am an inspiring writer and reading this provided me with some of the devices that are important to utilize as part of a writer's arsenal. The devices were obvious and all thru the reading I asked myself, 'How is King going to get through this?' His weapon of choice was most often Ralph Robert's narration (via third person) that analyzed the events of the story and interpreted its meaning and significance. It seemed whenever King was in trouble in the story, he would use Ralph as his solution and let him think it out and guide it for him. This is a useful tool for a beginning writer, but King used it as a crutch to tell a story that had no pulse from the beginning.

One last thing, the villians just don't work. They are not frightening, they are not demonic, they are not vicious or malign. Three little bald doctors with scalpels and scissors? Their defining characteristics are being small and bald- does that really frighten anyone? The real villian among them dances around and jump ropes to reveal his evil madness. Then there's the Crimson King, the evil supernatural mastermind we read about from page 100 who finally enters the story on page 550 as a Catfish in one of the most terrible, anti-climactic scenes ever rendered.  I rest my case.


Harlequin Presents...Nicholas Sparks
	While easy enough to read, if the exact same pages were enclosed in a Harlequin Romance cover, I wouldn't know the difference.

I'm extremely surprised this is a "best seller". Maybe I should take up writing because I can't possibly be worse than this.

Ok, it's a good enough story but wow, it's predictible and boring. I read it completely in 2 days, and I'm a reader that savors pages so it takes me a while. I wasn't intrigued, I wasn't on the edge of my seat, and didn't shed a tear


Not worth the money
	Bought this book hoping for a comprehensive resource of information on hiring a nanny.  Boy were we disappointed.  As was mentioned in another post - the book is nothing more than a glorified outline, and half of the book is copies of the forms that are on the disk, which forms by the way are in .pdf form and are not even fillable.


Too many metaphors, not enough info.
	I found this book to be full of silly metaphors (as if that's the only way we could relate to  Dr. Twerski).  It just didn't get me the information I needed.  Perhaps others would find it motivational


Dick management: Yes.  Idiot puritanism: No, thanks.
	This books seems interesting until you learn (within a few pages) that the author forbids masturbation at any time and basically sees sex as a crude animal instinct.

If you're a big Bill Bennett fan you might enjoy this, but for those inerested in developing a little more restraint while still participating to some small degree in modernity, look elsewhere.  BTW, Mr. O'Reilly, the world is NOT a more brutish place than ever before.  Sad, to say, it's almost certainly less so.


No original material, as far as I can tell.
	I agree with a previous reviewer who found fault with the way the story was told.  There is no excitement in describing the stages.  They are just wrapped up all of a sudden.

To me, it did not seem like the author did many interviews of his own.  It seems like he just watched the Tour de France and retold what he saw on the broadcast.  His supposed "back-stories" which should be really interesting, all seem like a recap of the mini segments during the Tour broadcast that let you know more about the participants.

There is just nothing that reaches out and grabs you, and makes you want to keep reading.  I finally quit it after the poor description of the day in the Pyrenees.  That is one of the most exciting stages of the race, and the narrative was so wooden


lacking in details and intimancies
	i'll be the first to admit that i'm biased based on my expectations from shaara's father's great book, the killer angels.  it is not fair to compare the two, but because reading the father's book lead me to buy this one, i thought i should mention it.  this book does not contain nearly the details and intimancies of the father's book.  it is not surprising since this one covers a much longer time frame than the battle of gettysburg, so shaara has less pages to devote to each person and battle.  but the result is a less satisfying book.  it skims rather than digs deep


The Definition of Trash
	Trash sells and this is the definition of trash. Unfortunately many readers see this as history instead of fiction. Shaara who may have had a ghost writer obviously never visited a manuscipt library to do research. Readers should stick to reading the history of these events done by people who know how to research and how to write


If only I could have back the hours I spent reading this book...
	I have read all of the Scarpetta novels through The Last Precinct, and I have never wanted hours of my life back as I did when I finished The Last Precinct.
  Cornwell tried to go in a new direction with her writing, and it failed. If Kay Scarpetta was a fortune teller, this book may have been alright...
  What I mean by that is, in at least 2-3 separate occassions in this book, Kay says "I had a feeling I knew exactly what [so in so was going to say/do to me..."
  Really Kay? Out of absolutely nowhere, you just believe that the unusual way Marino has been acting is due to the fact that you are going to be prosecuted by a special grand jury for homicide even though NOTHING led up to your supposed "revelation." You are truly impressive.
  Reading this book makes me want to steer clear of Blowfly and Trace, but then again, maybe Cornwell read some reviews and saw that she had to shape up.
  This book really ticked me off and I wouldn't recommend it to an enemy


My complaint...
	I don't own this book nor have I read it, but if that first sentence is any indication of the quality of writing, I won't ever.  It is not a sentence.  One would think you would save your non-sentences for someplace else in a book, not start off with one, giving your readers the impression that you are all hat and no cattle before you even make your points


Lets correlate joblessness with everything
	This book is full of excuses and manipulated data that ignores the ultimate moral responsibility of a society.  We can correlate joblessness with the number of innercity households that contain black ink pens if we want to.  While Wilson presents an argument in an attempt to educate, his words are slanted in such a way that we are left feeling "sorry for them"


Dull, Trite, and Disjointed
	I am an avid reader and have never once submitted a book review.  However, after reading Botox Diaries, I felt compelled to write and warn you all that this book is dull, trite, and disjointed.  I love my "chick-lit" books, but Botox Diaries is a disgrace to this genre.  The plot is weak and unrealistic (even in light of the suspended disbelief one normally affords "lite   fun" books).  The plot is also disjointed, perhaps because two authors co-wrote this book.  The characters are shallow and excruciatingly dull.  Botox Diaries is absolutely the worst book I have ever read.
-- December 2005 Update:  My friend insisted on reading this book (ugh...despite my warnings!). Even though she was stuck in the airport for eight hours, she still couldn't bear to finish the book, because she found it so dull. She actually left it, half-read, at the airport


I'd like to give it ZERO stars.
	Of all the textbooks I've had, from elementary school through graduate school, this is easily the worst one I've ever had, for any course.

First of all, the authors so redundantly use the word "whilst" and the phrase "rules of the game" that it really gets on your nerves. My classmates all agree with me on this point.

Second, speaking of getting on your nerves, half of what these authors say is, "...as we talked about in the previous chapter" or "as we'll talk about in the next chapter". There is so much redundant language in this book that it really could be condensed to about 25% of its size, and hell, it probably could simply be a chapter in the text for some other course.

Third, the authors should win a Pulitzer prize for flowery language. They seem more interested in impressing me than educating me. Their sentences are far too long. They don't know the meaning of clear and concise, and I think they should all go back to English Composition 101. They'd be great politicians, because never have I heard anyone say so much and yet say so little....over and over and over again.
The book is a like an inflated academic paper...and it's BORING. If ever a topic begged for a case-study approach, it's this one, and this book is not the answer. Save your money, and beg your instructor not to use this text.


not the best
	to me .this book was definately NOT one of the best in the series.I admire the Kristina,but this book was slow and dull.It was practiacally all about the politics of sweden.very dull


Not the best
	I'm not a fan of mysteries to begin with.  However, my public library has a limited selection of audio books, so I take what I can get.  I am a voracious reader, and I listen to audios to get more "reading" in, as you can listen and do other things.  I much prefer the Lillian Jackson Braun "cat" books, at least there is some humor, and I like the "mystery" part of these books better than Deaver's.  Sorry to all the Deaver fan's out there...I HAVE enjoyed a few of his books, but I get tired of the "same ole-same ole"


Not very well reasoned...patently unoriginal
	Like most critics of Objectivism, Mr. Walker focuses his criticism on Ayn Rand's frailties and idiosyncrasies rather than the principles of the philosophy she founded.  My disappointment in his book was immediate and I have to say it's as unoriginal a piece of writing as any other critic I've read.  His cynicism drips from almost every sentence and his contempt for all things Objectivism is obvious to anyone who takes ideas seriously.  I cannot recommend this book even to those interested in contrasting views of her approach to philosophy; this book was written for those of like mind to the author...whatever mind they can be said to have.

The body and scope of work done by Objectivist scholars who've never met Ayn Rand now ellipses her work - both fiction and non-fiction - and the work of her original core of thinkers.  To characterize the movement as a cult may have had some validity in the years prior to her death, but only in the most remote sense of the word.  Right now the ranks of Objectivism are swelling with intelligent people who differ in background AND in opinion.  Mr. Walker's principle mistake is looking at Objectivism as something that was born exclusively from the mind of Ayn Rand...something Miss Rand herself would disagree with.  Objectivism is the logical continuation of a line of thought that views mankind as a reasoning animal...a line that extends back through history and begins (explicitly) with Aristotle.  Those (like Mr. Walker) who dismiss it on the basis of Miss Rand's personality and the culture of people that grew around her in her lifetime are truly missing an opportunity to enlighten themselves.

There is no doubt Ayn Rand is a polarizing figure; my advice to those inclined to read Mr. Walker's book is to read Miss Rand's books as well.  Particularly her non-fiction.  I'm not a real big fan of her novels or fiction in general - it was Rand's non-fiction works that first inspired me to study her philosophy - so my first suggestion would be "Philosophy: Who Needs It."  I enjoyed her novels, but I enjoyed her non-fiction more


Flowery, predictable drivel
	I would normally not read Barbara Taylor Bradford but my boyfriends' Mom gave it to me as part of a present, so I said what the heck, I'll try it.

Just as disappointing as I'd expected. Light, uninteresting, and with no real plot or ending. As for the historical pages, read Catherine Cookson instead.

I may go back and listen to A Woman of Substance only because other reviewers seemed to have enjoyed it.

But this sequel was too into clothes and the finer things, and full of too-successful, too-beautiful men and women. Not believable.


Weak Cases
	Hi,
I have used this book among others to get accepted to McKinsey (and with success) and I think this book gave me less then others.
The advantages are the more or less detailed frameworks chapter and the real-life interviews chapter, but the cases themselves are rather superficial and sometimes even obviously ridiculous(like for example the case in which a Star-Trek like omnipotent people transporter has been invented, and the book claims that it wouldn't replace cars because it costs 100,000$. Come on, they would buy one for every block).
I think there are much better resources than this.

Good luck with your interviews


Interesting but lacking....
	Timothy Garton Ash's book the file was very provocative and interesting. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the personal experience of one man who happened to be in East Berlin before unification and then was able to see his file  afterwards.  However, i am a bit disillusioned.  The story interests me but  Garton Ash really doesn't say anything!  I am disappointed that he so  poignantly and blatantly pokes at communism and a totalitarian state.  And  yet he does not back it up.  The book is good under the premise of  democracy good, communism bad.  It feels like he is just pooling for  support.  And nobody knew the wall was going to  quot;fall quot; when it  did.  I know of many professors who were writing books critiquing communism  who had to throw out their text because of the abrupt fall of communism.  I'm wondering if this book is just a way to cash in an unexpected event.  I  am dissappointed.  Maybe i just don't know enough of Garton Ash but if this  is the case, i should not have to feel the need to know his history before  reading the book.  The book had some good points and kept me entertained  but on the whole didn't do anything for me.  Peace


The protection of the Remnant
	Petra of all places. Supernatural protection, persecution, on ad naseum. The one drug on, and on, and on,  and on ......
Same tired story, persecution by Carpathia a lame attempt at evil incarnate and his lackies. Sorry..

I think the series denegrates Christianity rather then exalting it.   I've read all 12 and found it morose and condemning. The opposite of how I view Christianity is.


The Rest of the Story
	This is a very famous and a very influential book. This was not the first time I checked the book out of the library but I now know much more about antidepressants and the related issues than I did when I first became familiar with Kramer's book. What I found on my quick survey of the book this time amazed me. This is not a book supported by research. It is a book of stories. The stories, one after the other, are about Kramer's patients (Kramer is a psychiatrist) and how taking Prozac dramatically transformed lives overnight. Consider these four examples.
1. Sam: "Sam not only recovered from his depression, he declared himself better than well. He felt unencumbered, more vitally alive, less pessimistic. Now he could complete projects in one draft, whereas before he sketched and sketched again. His memory was more reliable, his concentration keener. His memory was more reliable, his concentration keener. Every aspect of his work went more smoothly. He appeared more poised, more thoughtful, less distracted. He was able to speak at professional gatherings without notes.(Page x.)
2. Sally: After four months on Prozac, she looked brighter, calmer, self-assured, in control of herself. The most important effect of the medication, Sally felt was that it cleared her head...After ten months...she negotiated a small promotion and pay raise at a time when the bank was cutting back staff...More remarkable was the change to her private life. She started going to dances...(Page 147.)
3. William M: The patient's low self-esteem, which had been present since his earliest childhood, began to disappear...On medication William M. experienced a sense of self-worth superior to any he had felt before. (Page 203.)
4. Ms. B: For the first time in her memory she felt perfectly relaxed and happy sitting at home reading books or listening to music and felt less of the free-floating anxiety that was previously quelled by going out...Off Prozac, Ms. B. bar-hopped in search of men. Prozac moderated her sense of aloneness and allowed her to enjoy a variety of social settings.
Dozens of other examples could be cited. The point is, this is essentially the book. It is a book which convinces the reader of the almost magic power of Prozac by sharing stories like these. What is disturbing is that I now know the truth. Research investigations have found that the power of antidepressants has increased dramatically. They are now more effective because our belief in the power of a pill to cure social shyness, anxiety, depression, and a bad temper has increased dramatically. We have come to believe, as Kramer puts it, "biology is destiny" (page xiv). No where does Kramer explain that the longest of the clinical trial used to get approval of Prozac to market was only 8 weeks long. No where does he share that a tranquilizer was given to study subjects and the other tricks used to make the effectiveness of the drug appear greater than it really is. The dangers of long-term use (diabetes, Parkinson's disease, permanent muscle jerking, etc.) are never discussed. (Of course, these problems were still unknown when Kramer wrote.) See Timothy Scott's wonderful, and unlike Kramer's book, carefully documented book America Fooled: The Truth About Antidepressants, Antipsychotics, and How We've Been Fooled to find the dangers as well as what does bring good mental health. Yes, this book has been influential. Thus, Kramer bears some of the responsibilty for the myth surrounding antidepressants. (They do not work as well as exercise even--numerous studies.) It's funny how, as our knowledge grows, a great book beomes a harmful book, but it is just that.


Nothing good to say about the 10th good thing....
	I work in a school library and as a cat lover am always seeking out the cat books.  This one caught my eye and I was expecting something wonderful.  I found the story to be hopeless and defeating.  How sad the only comfort the father has to offer is composting tips and the last memory the child has to hold is that of a decomposing cat.  I'm no censor, but two thumbs way down.  Also, if you are looking for something wonderful for pet loss, try Cynthia Rylant's, Cat Heaven


Weak Link in a Great Series
	I read A is for Alphabet years ago and did not get pulled into the series.  Years later I read S is for Silence and was hooked. I started to read the series--backwards at first and then jumped to the beginning.  I have really enjoyed the books and felt a connection to the heroine (and forgiven Ms. Grafton for making her weigh 118 lbs on her 5'6" frame).  However, I agree with the other readers who feel like this is not Grafton at her best.  You just can't believe that Kinsey would put herself in these ridiculous positions---belting a police officer to endear herself to a woman she is investigating, remaining in an incredibly (and unbelievable) dangerous situation, to name a few.  The dialogue is weak,the sexual situations seem gratutitous, and there is a fair amount of stereotyping of hispanics.  But even with these issues, I did finish the book.  Grafton at her low point is still a good read


lacking lots of info
	the first few chapters have built the anticipation for a good strategy to learn , HOWEVER, there were no formulas, nothing to learn.
book talks about theories about market timing with no proof.
i wouldent take it seriously as i though


fairytaleaficcionado
	interesting, well documented, with marvelous illustrations.Definitely a good buy for adults who still dream  of fairy tales characters. It is a pity that the collection does not include stories from "One thousand and one nights". Otherwise it will be perfect and complete.


vague and dull
	It certainly sounded exciting.  Unfortunately, it's mostly a bunch of long winded articles on vague ideas that you've already thought of a hundred times.  That's not to say that the ideas aren't important.  I was simply expecting something a bit more focused by an author willing to take some risks.  On the bright side, the book won't become dated for quite some time.


Typical characters, fast plot
	Flynn offers up a fast-paced, if unbelievable story.  Unfortunately, character development is paper thin and clearly portrays Flynn's political preferences.  Characters, like Rapp, with a military background are guided by clearly defined ethical principles, have all the answers and are always showing those good-for-nothing politicians how the "real world" works.  Meanwhile, Flynn's politicians (the majority of whom are Democrats) seem only concerned with public opinion and the next election.  While there are grains of truth in his characters, Flynn consistently goes for the cheap, partisan stereotype.  I was looking for a well-developed political/military thriller.  I'm still looking.


not so good
	i felt as if this book was way below my reading leve


Microserfs 2.0?!?
	I'm really a great fan of Douglas Coupland, which is perhaps much of the reason I found this book so disappointing. I hate the fact that it has been dubbed the new Microserfs, since it totally lacks the insight, wit and 'funny because its true' apsects of the original. About the only thing it has in common with  Microserfs is the fact that its set in the same industry.

jPod is set in a landscape of unreality, with no apparent reason than to make a series of whacky adventures for eccentric, and for the most part unlikeable, characters. It certainly doesnt reflect the IT industry of today, and the members of the jPod really only seem to represent those aspects of this community which give programmers a bad reputation, as essentially dysfunctional (autistic) as they are. There doesnt even seem to be any real focus for this story. I felt like I was mostly reading about a heap of stuff that 'happened'.

Its not all bad, and there were more than a few humorous moments, and interesting plot twists. Coupland's highly approachable and fast moving writing style hasn't changed. Its really just the subject matter and whatever its trying to communicate that seems to have fallen in a heap, in this book. I normally devour all of his books within a day or two, and want to read them again soon after, but it was a real struggle just to get through this one to the end


If you like Scarpetta - -
	Then you'll probably like this story.

My wife and I read books together and I'd sworn off Cornwell after Hornet's Nest (which on TV Cornwell admitted was some warmed over college material - and it showed horribly).  The Scarpetta character (in some books) is unbelievably emotionally ultra-hyper (going from confident to terrified every time Marino knocks on the door).

In this book she was mercifully level headed almost ALL the time!  What a relief.  And there was a real story.  I'm not really a fan of her work over the last 10 years but there's almost enough lab details here to satisfy.  Sure wish she (Scarpetta) would learn to delegate - imagine the top lab expert for her state and she has to go to every crime scene and move bodies herself!

Anyway don't start here with the Scarpetta series - but if you already like the character, this one is a B+.  Compared to other crime novels in general, it's still a C- in my estimation