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As a young woman I was appauled by Gurian's lack of respect for women as human beings.What makes me the most furious is his shadowy writing which can lead a young woman to think she is only worth something if she squishes herself to allow the boys and men to take the lead in life.The resounding message is girls and women are potentially inferior and cannot because of our hormones make important contributions to society beyond traditional roles.I don't remember ever being taken over by hormones and rendered down to a emotional bundle of primative chemical reactions he believes all females to be. I agree with posters about this bridge brain foolishness.Gurian is a master at twisting words around and you have to read his books being mindfull of his tricks.His book is full of agenda.

I m not a big fan of communism, nor of Stalin. But I cross checked the facts mentioned in this book with facts in some other books I have read on similar subject and found that author Edvard Radzinsky is strongly biased against Stalin. In the entire book he seems to give no credit for anything to Stalin nor to his leadership qualities during the course of Second World War. Dont waste your money on a propaganda book. Better to go for an unbiased account from a neutral observer, thats what Biographies are supposed to be

I love Peterson's Guides, but the birds of Mexico is severely lacking. The art certainly holds up to the standard set by the guides to North America, but unfortunately, it can only be considered complete if you tag along two other Peterson Guides. Perhaps a good addition if you wish to complete your collection of Peterson Guides, but otherwise, buy Howell's or Edward's Guides, both of which far outshine this guide when considered alone. Howell's is certainly the most complete, but Edward's guide is a bit handier in the field

Alright, for those of you who say Rand is criticizing works for false ideals, or lacking in substance, I say this: who is Rand to say what the absolute greatest ideals are? Who is Rand to say what substance is? You've got to look at her bias, first. Realize that Rand never takes into account anything not related to personal freedom. As if outside factors never matter; and maybe they don't, for her. Maybe her life in an oppressive Russia did nothing to form who she is today. But I doubt it. Though I believe personal choice plays a huge factor in determining who we are and how we live, outside influences do affect a person. But she doesn't. Thus she condemns all works that are not driven solely by the individual as crap. All books that are not driven solely by the individual's sense of reason: don't read, cause it will lessen your IQ. Any work that portrays or is driven by an emotion she doesn't find worthwhile or cannot understand, she condemns. Rand, at least as portrayed in what I've read of her work, is unfeeling toward anything but what she wants. And this is carried over into this book in what she criticizes. They cannot hold a little or a fairly large amount of quality, they are either good or worthless. The pieces of art she says are empty ARE empty, absolutely. They don't fit into her paradigm thus have nothing to offer. Nothing to offer her, that is. How is a completely selfish person supposed to write a critique of history's best books, telling OTHER people (with different wants and ideas and all the other funtions of an individual) What they should read? Truthfully any criticism in this form, like a list I saw detailing the 100 best literary works in the world, is elitist crap trying to close people's minds toward books that a certain group deems lesser than others. They have their bias like anyone else. I say read in variety. Observe art outside of Rand's choice of art. Take in all you can, with an open mind, then start pondering whether you agree or not. If you then agree because YOU agree, then I say great. Its the basic individualistic response that Rand seems to forget to address. She says question society, but by my line of inquiry. She says be an individual, but only I know the basis of who you want to be

Why in the world would anyone publish a writer's bread and butter notes to his agent? Besides the money, I mean. There are a couple or three interesting fulminations against this publisher or that editor, whom Heinlein feels did him dirty. But in the main this body of correspondence is of zero interest to any but the most complete worshipers of the sf master. Just enjoy the stories, and nevermind the workaday business of how they got published

I started reading this book hoping for the best. In turn, I found that my hopes weren't fulfilled. The beginning half was intriguing and kept me wanting more. After the tone changed, the book became bitter and boring. The characters lost their flare, and the whole book lost personality. The book became dull and lost appeal to me. The book's writing style, in the beginning, was original and fun. Following the death of Little Red the book slowly fell apart, leaving me tempted to stop reading the book. If someone asked me to recommend a good book, this would not be the one

This book is nothing more than a chaotic brainstorm session with no pertinent information at all. You could save yourself time with a pen and some paper and a group of friends because thats all this author did. Book doesnt SHOW you how to start up any of the ideas it just lists them. It also has a plethora of grammatical errors and is almost as if the editor didn't even bother to read it before sending it to the presses. It is a complete waste of time and not worth the ninety cents it costs to buy it used.

I like the idea that Michael Lewis wrote this book/article to defend a man whose coaching techniques are clearly out of style in todays world of my child this and my child that. Having said that I did not like this book: 1) the writing was chopping and hard to follow at times. i had to re-read many sentences to understand lewis' point. 2) the story lacked the depth of lewis' other wonderful books - where's the who/why/what that lewis used to moneyball (and others) educational - i wanted the story behind the story. 3) who were all the pictures of? i found them distracting... i'll continue to read lewis' books bu thope the next one is bette

I am extremely dissapointed with this new edition of the text and have one advise only: If you own 2nd ed., do not indulge in this new edition for even the errors (spellings for one) are xeroxed onto the new edition. Therefore, for a review of the text itself, you may, without any compunction, refer to 2nd ed.'s comments, of which there are many

Ethan Mordden's editors have allowed him to ruin what could possibly have been a good book. This is the worst of his books on the various decades of the Broadway musical as the faults of the seventies book have widened into gulfs. His political ramblings (often just slightly right of Ann Coulter and making as much sense) seep through the book, dragging it down. The French people are slammed a number of times, along with the ACLU, Burt Lancaster (apparently, according to Ethan a good friend of Stalin) and the left in general, while the author defends Bush (and it does take some looking back over the page to figure out how he fits all this into a book on musical theatre). The author's train of thought wanders like a bitter old man all over the page in search of a target, any target. It is often hard to stomach. The truly sad fact about this is that the author often has quite cogent things to say about a particular musical and when he does stick to that, it can actually make one want to look at the work again. An editor should have cleaned the work up before before allowing it on stage to greet its public. The author is capable of better work

"The Other Boleyn Girl" and "The Queen's Fool" are two of the best books I've ever read--and I've read a LOT of books, especially about this period, which especially fascinates me. They were gripping to the end, and my involvement with the characters was complete--true masterpieces. So whenever a new book by Philippa Gregory comes out, I buy it, hoping to have the same experience, and lately have been sorely disappointed. "The Virgin's Lover" fell flat, and now I am trying to read this book but not finding myself engaged, must give it up. One reviewer suggested the books were being written too quickly--that is always an easy guess, however it depends on the writer. Anthony Trollope, for instance, was able to turn out amazing book after amazing book with incredible speed. That may or may not be the case with Gregory. I know, as a writer myself, that there are times when the work flows out, feeling almost as if it's channeled from another source, and times when it's harder, more mechanical. The more challenging situations are those when I'm not entirely convinced or in love with my subject. So to me, neither of these books feels as if they spring from a natural impulse. They feel forced, constructed. I'm going back to Trollope

My husband is Icelandic, and unfortunately this book was NO help at all... It's perfectly fine for the traveller, but in trying to live everyday life, conversing with new family members forget it. I would have liked to have seen a more comprehensive grammatical section, something that was laid out in something easy to look at and understand. If you are quite serious about learning this language I would honestly recommend saving the 20 bucks and buying the bit more expensive Colloquial Icelandic. For me at least, it's quite easier to understand, has complete grammatical charts in the back, as well as a fairly decent dictionary... Again, if you are only learning for business trips and such, then this would be a good option... For those of us actually moving there, her book is not so good..

Watson and Crick pilfered the data of Rosalind Franklin (unbeknownst to her) and her data then led them to their ultimate discovery of the double-helix nature of DNA. Instead of acknowledging her with praise, Watson goes on to belittle her and cast her in dark tones without understanding the context in which she was working (ie, a woman working in male-dominated science n the 1950's) -- a classic case of reaction formation. Maybe a brilliant man but with poor insight into human relationships

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

OK I havent read it yet, and it will take some effort to do so. The pages are yellowed, they are cut uneven(A first for me to witness!!) I have ordered 3 books on chinese issues, and 2 have been scams. OK, there's a lesson there somewhere - buyer beware, especially concerning chinese items!!! Their economic strategy revolves around/ begins with CHEAP MATERIALS! BUYER BEWARE

The book is obviously well-researched and the chapter on The Riders was interesting. However, the author included a lot of details that just really didn't matter-as if he threw in the entire contents of his research rather than sifting out the relevant facts. The photos and illustrations that he used were illuminating and contributed to the educational value of the book. My professor was able to bring Dr. Schrag to talk to our class. He was a good lecturer-keeping the class' interest with humor and introducing us to new ways to look at photography and the Metro. If he could make his writing style more like his teaching style, I think he would have much more success as an author

Before I bought the Pasajes series, I was relieved to see the (then) mostly positive reviews. However, I really feel like the overall review score of 4.5 stars is very, very misleading. I would not, in good faith, be able to recommend this series of books for learning Spanish. This series of books was VERY confusing and EXTREMELY difficult to work with. Some of the many issues with using this series of books to learn spanish: 1) the concepts are not clearly explained (they invented a "new" english word for one) and the exercises are excessively complicated and do not give you enough practice with the vocabulary/concepts to feel confident using them. 2) Frequently, new words, phrases and concepts are introduced in the middle of a lesson about something else, via a footnote, with no further explaination provided!! This is SUPER frustrating and distracting! 3) Using this series of books is very cumbersome, the books are not well coordinated with one another, and do not appear to reinforce each other's concepts or vocabulary. I'm very sorry, but these books are just terrible, and 4.5 stars is not at all reflective of the quality of these books... Using this series of books has taken ALL the fun out of learning Spanish, which I used to enjoy. If you have the option to use different books, take it

Perfectly in keeping with the imperialist ethos that he so proudly and loudly espouses, Boot has foisted upon us a book that rests entirely on the labors of others. Lacking even the slightest trace of shame, he plunders concepts and ideas from anyplace in the intellisphere he chooses. As a result, there's nary a new thought nor insight to be found anywhere within these pages. Even more pitiably, like a renegade third world nuclear scientist trying to "sanitize" his clandestinely-acquired apparatus of any markings that might possibly identify its source, Boot assiduously scrubs away any subtleties and nuance that the original thoughts may have possessed. One wearies quickly of the Manichaean results. And like any ideologically-driven but technically inept would-be nuclear (or social) engineer, he fails utterly in his attempt to enrich his raw material even minimally, succeeding only in rendering it more toxic and hazardous than it originally was. Why, even the title itself has been purloined from Alistair Home's 1977 underground classic, "A Savage War of Peace"!* Considering that Home's tome arrives at essentially the opposite conclusions from Boot's, this is irony most profound. It is scarcely surprising, then, that recent history has thoroughly discredited the philosophies and policies so ear-splittingly trumpeted in Boot's book, thus rendering moot any lingering interest one might have had in perusing it -- unless one wishes to take counsel for the future by ruminating upon the Ozymandian ruins of Boot's espoused belief system. * Recently reprinted and highly recommended!

First let it be said that this book leads you to believe that he hikes the whole trail... He does not. He hikes less than a third. You dont find this out until 2/3 through the book, which is right about when the book goes from passibly bad, to an ill effort to fulfill a contract. My conclusion on this book is that he was contracted to hike the trail by his publisher, could not, and stuffed the remainder of the book with verbatum history lessions and whole cloth inserts of useless statistics. As others have said in this review forum. This book can be snide, highschoolish and down right mean. I fail to see the "wit" in his endless negitivity and bashing. This book has a few funny parts, but I cant help but feel that it is a huge exageration of real events, and is mostly contrived fictional accounts which he uses to air is nasty comments. It is so unbelievible in places, that you know you are on an imagined tangent. Dont waste your money or time. I am so happy I bought it for 25 cents at a yard sale!

First of all, I did not exactly 'read' this biography. Instead I purchased the CD version which I distilled via my car sound system every morning on my way to work (I have enjoyed countless biographies of great american figures this way, and still been able to read many more technology related books). I had great expectations from this book, having recently enjoyed three biographies of Lincoln. I have to confess that I was sorely disapointed. I found the research of Mr McCullough to lack the kind of details that I have enjoyed in biographies from Walter Isaacson, Richard Carwardine, or Doris Goodwin. I do not seek a beautiful story in a biography, but rather a reliable source of facts that I can use to form my own opinion of a character. In this context, I find Mr McCullough's use of superlatives or long emotionally charged sentences to be a distraction from the subject matter of John Adams and his contribution to America. I also enjoy direct quotes from letters, speaches, autobiographies, as they help me refine my impressions of the context (the period, the relationships to contemporary characters, ...) surounding a promonent figure. Usage of the English language in politics has dramatically evolved since Mr Adams' time, and I missed 'hearing' the voice of John Adams. Instead, this biography felt like reading a translation where the personality of the translator overshadows the personality of the original author. Finally, having read other biographies of the founding fathers, I was disapointed to find so little about the complex relationship between Adams and Franklin. All in all, my lasting impression is that Mr McCullough did a great job at bringing John Adams and the early American Revolution to the masses through a very appealling product that may however leave readers asking for more historical details and less emotional opinions. Had I known that, I might have passed on this biography and instead explore Mr McCullough's fictional work

I echo the comments of the previous reviewers. Don't waste your money. Not only does this book present a tedious repetition of facts and stories already well known to even a casual U2 fan, it can't even get those facts right! The book states that Bono's father dropped the family off at a Catholic Church before driving himself to another church. This contradicts the correct statement on the preceding page that Bob Hewson was Catholic, while Bono, his mother and brother were Protestant. In the same paragraph the Dublin neighborhood of "Glasnevin" is misspelled "Asnevin". The hearing aid shop from which Bono took his name is misspelled, and perhaps most galling of all, the author can't even get the full name of Larry Mullen, Jr. right! And this is just chapter one! I have to agree that this book was simply thrown together to make a quick buck and therefore not worth purchasing. I would suggest skipping this one and purchasing Bono: In Conversation With Michka Assayas, which includes a pretty good account of Bono's life from the man himself.

Now, I enjoy Victorian adventure fiction as much as the next person -- in fact, probably more than the next person, since the average "next person" hasn't ever read any. Tales of derring-do, adventures to unexplored distant lands, lost civilizations, great artifacts, etc. -- that's all good stuff. What's not good is this book, which is tedious in the extreme. On the surface of it, Haggard's followup to his hugely successful (and infinitely better) "King Solomon's Mines" has all the elements: a dynamic duo of scholar-adventurers (one of whom is descended from pharaohs!), a mysterious message from the past delivered by a dying man, an expedition to Africa, and a supernatural being who knows the secret of eternal life. However, despite this promising laundry list, Haggard's execution leaves a great deal to be desired. A friend described it rather aptly as "a book with a lot of story, but not a lot of plot." Which is to say that in my edition, some 320 pages are filled without much happening. There is the initial mysterious set-up, the journey to dark Africa with the usual physical trials and tribulations, the heroes' conveyance to the "lost city", and then... and then things kind of grind to a halt. Lengthy descriptive details, lengthy internal ruminations, lengthy rambling speeches, lengthy everything -- but very little of consequence occurs until the very end, when the heroes make a dangerous journey to find the eternal fire which grants nigh-everlasting life. I suspect much of the problem stems from the book's origin as a long-running serial in the Gazette. As I understand it, serial writers of the time were paid by the word or by the installment, and thus, it was to their advantage to spin their plots out as much possible -- hence the unhealthy ratio of action to words. Judicious editing could reduce the book to 1/3 of its size without any loss of note. Of course, as another friend pointed out, it's probably best to read the book is small chunks -- just as one would have done with installments. Spreading out one's reading of it over a period of time, he suggests, may serve to conceal the book's rambling nature. In any event, there are some nice scenes here and there, such as the moonlight battle between crocodile and lion and another involving human cadavers used as torches, but those are about all I'm likely to recall from this book in a year. Of course, as is noted in the introduction to my edition, Haggard lifted the main elements of the plot, and even the the true name of "She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named", from several earlier adventure novels by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, so one can't even give him much credit for imagination. I suppose the book is worth reading by those interested in literary representations of the prevailing xenophobic sentiments of Victorian Englishmen: racism, anti-Semeticism, misogyny, fear of miscegenation, etc., but as entertainment for the modern reader, it falls woefully short of the mark.

If you want the why and the wherefore ... stay away. Informative to general audiences, it provides little scientific support for its contention. With the wealth of information out there, this was not the critical review needed, nor was it terribly informative about any particular statin-caused effect

Casual book browsers who stumble across Braden's book, "The Isaiah Effect," might undoubtedly be drawn to the implications of the title: that there exists some mystical, unifying code which is only now being fully understood through modern techniques, research, and understanding. I, as one such browser, had briefly read about the so-called "Bible Code" which computers have now enabled man to explore and thought that the subject of this book might be related. With my interest piqued at the title and the book description, I delved into the pages expecting to learn exactly what encompassed Isaiah's "precise instructions" of prayer. I wanted to know exactly what Braden claimed to have stumbled upon. What I found in this 250 page foray into countless subjects was nothing other than a pastiche of new-thought concepts. The mixing of religions, for example - a sort of pick-and-choose spirituality which has slowly been creeping its way into the mainstream for decades - is recycled over and over again, drawing from endless sources of gnostic gospels and other lost books. In only one chapter does Braden actually begin to describe in detail verses from the book of Isaiah. Instead he relegates the books of the Essenes to positions of higher authority and prominence. In the brief pages in which Braden actually does discuss Isaiah, his conclusions speak nothing of a decoded lost science. His basic premise of "The Effect" is that people can alter their futures by the choices they make in the present. Such a revelation is not a new interpretation of Isaiah at all. Any student of the Bible and Christianity knows that all the prophetic books of the Old Testament are records of God warning Israel, and the world, of turning away from Him. To Braden's credit, his discussions of the effects of prayer in today's society are commemorable, albeit somewhat misguided. I agree with him that people in today's society need to turn away from the petty details of life with which they've surrounded themselves. However, I believe Braden over-emphasizes the role of feelings and emotion in prayer. He fails to discuss how humans, and their emotions, are extremly fallable and can change as quickly as the winds in his anecdotes. Braden wants desperately to believe that the true power of prayer is to be found in all the lost science which he has uncovered in ancient texts. In the process he fails to recognize that the blueprint for prayer has been known to man ever since he was created. Humbleness before God and the filling of the Holy Spirit are the true keys to prayer - not cosmic emotions and human feelings. A disappointing read

I am an elementary school teacher previewing this book in order to find a developmentally appropriate text for a study of religion. I am not religious and I strive to take a learner's stance and a scholarly approach to any unit of study that I present to my students. Betsy and Guilio Maestro have written other fabulous books on several topics; books that I have made available to my students for their research because they were accurate and presented without bias. This particular work unfortunately is neither. Their gesture was genuine and gracious, an example of the tolerance they wanted to promote. No deity need take offense; all were included in the pantheon of possibilities. It is however filled with inaccuracies and contradictions and finally a statement of belief by the authors. Though written as an overview of many of the world religions, this book culminates in a doctrinal statement of the confusing theology of religious pluralism, the view that no religion is objectively truer than any other. One point ought to be obvious, though: Everything can't be true. The religions mentioned are like oil and water; they can't mix because they represent opposite and competing concepts. An appeal to their similarities doesn't help. We would never say aspirin and arsenic are basically the same just because they both come in tablet form. It's the differences that are critical. That's true in all areas of life, especially the spiritual. If God exists, He's either personal or not personal. He can't be both. If God is merely a cosmic energy, why ask His blessing? He can't hear or respond. If He's a person, then He's someone, not everyone. This book is not as much a story of religions as it is a recipe for religious stew

This book is a disappointment. It provides little insight into the life or personality of Robert Redford, the actor or the person. The book is basically a chronicle of the movies RR has directed or in which he has appeared as an actor. But even as a filmography the book fails. The reader learns little about the creation of each movie or the relationships among the actors beyond the anecdotes that have been repeated numerous times on TV or in the press. In addition, the authors have the annoying habit of consistently putting down Robert Redford with snide remarks. There must have been something about the actor other than his white teeth and good looks that made him an international superstar. For sure, it must be difficult to write a biography of such a private person as Robert Redford. However, it is the responsibility of biographers to gather information and gain an understanding of their subject, and if they can't do so, then there is no book

This books starts with such promise but I find it hard to believe that the people who wrote the glowing reviews were actually able to slog through it! Minutiae-fest

I originally had to read this book for a History of Rock and Roll class at the University of Cincinatti. I found the subject interesting, and the professor gave wonderful lectures. I had good expectations about this book going in, but those quickly soured as I read it. It seems correct, at least, about the social problems of the different eras and their relation to rock. Not that such is a particularly daunting feet. However, it is rife with laughable fallacies. For instance, it calls David Bowie, amongst other glam rock bands of the era, metal. It futher goes on to call many pop bands of the 60s and 70s rock, when they have no guitar work and no bass line at all, such as the Carpenters. I really had a good laugh when they called Bad Religion hardcore. Bad Religion is about as hardcore as Elvis is rap. Further massive genre confusion consisted throughout the entire book. I also noted several drastic misinterpretations of songs. For instance, it claims 'Thunder Rolls' by Garth Brooks is about domestic violence. Its about infedility, not focusing on violence at all, but rather the emotional ramificationsof being cheated on. The writing is also rather dry. Many times it is merely a citing of the names of band members as well as constantly describing minor changes in bands lineups which are of no true consequence. It also tends to list off songs which have no impact on any giving band's successes or failures. After reading the book in completetion, I really had to question the earlier passages about older rock and blues (50s to 60s) that I had thought were true. In the end, I felt that it wasted my time and money and possibly misinformed me more than anything

Mr. Haqqani's views about his mother country are very dubious. The only question I have for the author as he served in some very corrupt governments as their partner...What has he done for his home land? Nothing!!! This book in waste of time.

Temperance Brennan is an American forensic anthropologist .The author is a anthropologist in real life and I feel she gave to much detail as to body parts & conditions ,& locations in the book , and in about the 3rd chapter to much time and space is wasted talking about "Gabby " including in detail where gabby lives and details that surround the outside of Gabbys place & How Gabby and Tempe were friends from GRad to man parts in life . Book was not for me I dropped it at the 3rd chapter .

Not that great. A far better read is "Sun, Sin And Suburbia: An Essential History Of Modern Las Vegas" by Geoff Schumacher.

It's disturbing to see how many mistakes I found just browsing through this colorful, attractive book. Though the state bird of Alabama is known locally as "yellowhammer," you will not find that name in any field guide! The accompanying picture was no help either in identifying what turned out to be the Common Flicker. Other state birds were listed by uncommon, incorrect, misleading names too. The 1995 bombing in Oklahoma City is represented by a nice picture and writeup, but with a glaring misspelling in its headline--"In Memorium" should be "In Memoriam." Claremore, OK is misspelled as "Clarmore" on the map. These errors leaped out at me just flipping through the pages. This is very disappointing and makes me wonder what other misinformation this book contains. Adults have some knowledge and experience against which to measure what they read; schoolchildren who may be learning facts for the first time need the facts to be correct

The best out of three guide books I looked at, and a must for the first trip to the big island.

I also bought the hype of NYTimes Best Seller. Goes to show you some people have really bad taste. The story was promising and could have been exciting without the awful dialog. It seems like the author was being paid by the word - too much repetition, entire scenes which added nothing to the story, etc. I would NEVER purchase another book by this author. Glad it's over and this ones in the trash can... Charli

Margaux with an x is about a young lady who seems to have it all. Beauty,Popularity and can do about anything without getting into trouble at home. Yet she is not happy she holds a dark secret that happened to her when she was young.She is tired of every boy drooling over her and wanting to date her and most having no content to them. She has a gambler as a father and a mother who just watches television all day. Her life takes a different turn when she meets Danny. He is the total opposite of all the guys she has dated. He is a year behind her in high school he is thin and is not shapely, yet they both start a bond with each other. The book was interesting but after awhile I got tired and could not keep up with the constant bantering and sarcasm of the main characters

This is a difficult book for beginner-level spanish language students. I kept it b/c I understand that it is one they use at the immersion course I will be taking soon in Mexico. Probably will not use it before that or subsequent

I bought this book for my CCNP recertification. I ran into a bunch of stuff on the exam that was not covered in this book or was in greater detail than was covered by this book. I used Sybex books before on my original CCNP certification and I passed. If I try to recertify, it won't be with one of those books. I'll use Cisco Press. Live and learn.

Being an engineer in the aerospace industry I was highly interested in this book based on my experiences from the vantage point a "hard industry." I personally believe that it's in our long term interests to maintain a strong manufacturing base because that's the foundation of real wealth, not legal services or newswires. So this book sounded like the perfect source of information to explain our current economic situation, give an assessment of how bad or how good it really is, and suggest ways to improve it. Oh, how very, very wrong I was . . . This book started off strong, . . . for about four pages. After that a litany of tortured logic, un-sourced assertions, facts taken completely out of context except for the author's subjectively added adjectives, Orwellian double-speak, sleight of hand arguments, flat out ridiculuos statements, contradictory assessments, and even emotional vitriol coalesced not so much into an argument for industry but one for eighteenth century mercantilism with perhaps a sprinkling of far left George Soros on top to serve as an update for the twenty first century. Even a broken watch is correct twice a day though, so there were some good points in the book which buy it the 2 star rating. These include: - Manufacturing provides a large source of proprietary knowledge which both improves productivity and serves as a barrier of entry, creating an industry with a large base of high paying jobs, provided it's run right. (A big if.) - High wage nations can still compete effectively with low wage nations in manufacturing by being capital intensive. - Americans need to save more and our education system needs to produce more engineers and technically oriented graduates. - There is some excess in the financial services and managers of publicly traded companies take too short term a view, leading them to sell the company upriver in the long run because of a personal temporary short term gain. (i.e. Enron) A scholarly, fair, and comprehensive book that focused on the above would be extremely interesting and useful. This is not what you'll get in this book though. Instead you'll get: A begining section about postindustrialism, things like the internet, information technology, financial services, etc., the things that make the services based economy. In three chapters the author simply sets up straw men by taking the worst examples of post industrial advocates, instead of presenting a comprehensive picture of the post industrial argument. Not being satisfied with this he proceeds to beat the straw men, set them on fire, and piss on the smoldering remains. This is where vitriol even comes out, where he equates the post-industrialists to people incapable of even thinking. If someone has to go to this extreme to make their argument, they probably don't have one. Most telling he leaves the final assessment of the value of the internet to a feminist. To me, this would be like leaving the final assessment of how good a bicycle is to, oh, I don't know, let's say a fish. A middle section extolls the virtues of manufacturing. This is a bunch of hand picked anectdotal stories and there's no overview of manufacturing in the world or its real impact on economies at large. This is the kind of subject that screams for reams of data, charts of GDP growth over time, pie charts of the breakdown of economies into services, manufacture, agriculture, etc. You will get none of that. There's little value except in reassuring the obvious, high wage nations CAN do manufacturing. Many of these cherry-picked anectdotal examples still don't quite dove-tail with all his claims about manufacturing though! You also know you're being left in the dark with a plethora of CYA disclaimer statments like "while Industry_X has certainly had its share of problems recently . . ." at the begining of a section. A final section basically amounts to an attack on laissez-faire, free markets, and the concept of free trade. George Soros and a bunch of other lefties, with Pat Buchanan thrown in for "balance", should be listened to instead. The worst part of this book is the author's lack of an ability to make any sort of coherent argument. Examples of twisted thinking abound: - A post-industrial "industry" grows five times over in a certain period. The author then goes onto explain how this is not really real growth but something that in reality is bad. Later he proves how great a manufacturing industry is because in the same period it grows a whopping 60%! Self contradictory evaluations of the performance of services vs manufacturing is common and always falls down on the side that the manufacturing industry is far far better than the service industry even when all the standard economic indicators suggest otherwise. The author's challenge to the reader seems to be "who are you going to believe? Me, or your lying eyes?" - He rips into American post industrial industries as being labor intensive and vulnerable to low wage nations because Americans are no smarter or more creative or more anything than laborers around the world. Later he talks about how great German manufacturing is because Germans are so much more diligent than the rest of the world's workers. - The only facts he presents - and they are surprisingly thin and overwhelmed by mere assertions - are always modified by his subjective opinion and never put in context. When describing service industries "paltry" $50 million revenues, "only" 60,000 jobs, "disappointing" 24% of revenues from foreign sources is common. But when describing manufacturing "a very high" $6 million revenues, "a good mix" of 1,500 jobs, and similar glowing assessments are inevitable despite the number to follow. A number in and of itself means nothing. The fact the author leaves out any head on, direct comparison between industries is telling. - Official figures are the ultimate source of information when they agree with what the author believes. When the official figures don't agree with him, he finds some loner who does and then barely explains how this time around the official figures are somehow wrong. When attacking his straw men though, he accuses them of ignoring official figures and quoting some loner. - Gems of Orwellian double-speak sentences include examples like "Solar is already a fully competitive source of energy in remote areas that do not have grid electricity. (pg. 184)" I.e. it's competitive where there is NO competition! And "Even in Singapore, one of the freest societies in the East, the savings rate was successfully boosted by a system of forced savings . . . (pg. 229)" That's not very free if it's FORCED is it? (His defense of solar is one of the most hilariously pathetic eight pages I've ever read and really is worth the price of the book. He capstones it with the "most encouraging" observation that solar cells have gone from producing one third of the energy used to make them before they wore out - that is consuming more total energy in their manufacture than they eventually make!- to now producing three times as much energy as required to produce them before they wear out. Wow, what an achievement. Any ACTUAL power source converts many thousands of times the energy used to manufacture it before it's internal workings wear out, but whatever . . .) - Americans are dumb and the only successful American companies basically blundered into monopolies on standards. The American economy, despite the statistics, is in bad shape. The Japanese instead are eight feet tall, can read people's minds and see through lead. The Japanese economy, despite the statistics, is in really great shape. This type of persistently biased characterization makes you question everything he claims, and eliminates any value or truth he might actually have in his arguments. The author basically can't get out of his own way. - He always attacks opponents of his viewpoint by claiming that they don't put numbers into context, are using twisted logic, making mere assertions instead of quoting facts, etc., apparently oblivious that these are the very same tactics he himself uses! - He claims Boeing is no longer a good company because 30% of components in a Boeing aircraft are now made abroad vs. 2% in the 1960's. This is actually because foreign manufacturing for those components happens to be better and cheaper. America isn't doing that badly in aerospace by the way. The author fails to mention that 50% of the "European" Airbus is made in America. This is an example of free trade actually distributing production to where it is most efficient. The list goes on and on to ridiculous proportions. You'd have to buy the book to see them all because there's at least one thing an alert and critical reader can find highly questionable on each page. All in all, this book was way off the mark and a highly squandered opportunity. It's really a mercantilist argument, and the only common thread that I could see in all the author's cloudy reasoning is that nation's should do everything in their power to export more than they import no matter what. It's NOT, unfortunately, a book about how to revitalize American manufacturing in a globalized world.

"Our attention is the most precious resource we have," says Shenk. Well...I'm not sure everyone would agree. But this is the way he would like to slice the whole matter of information technology, the media, etc., etc., and that's fine. Shenk's standpoint is amazingly isolated and will make sense only to an elite ensconced in the same high fallutin' mix of punditry/technology/leisure time he is. Information overload, or "data smog" as the author terms it, is certainly a relevant and important area to explore, but Shenk, in is privileged world, really can't nail down what might be so detrimental about it. His examples illustrate just how removed his is from the vast majority of American society: minute-by-minute news reports diluting the quality of info and the ability to sort it, not feeling so apt to respond to your friends' email because you get too much, the end of patience? As he represents it in "the end of patience," data smog really ain't no big woop--it's just some tacks on the erogomic seats of a pampered minority into which Shenk seems to fit. Where's the politics, I wonder? How does this trivia fit into the lives of Middle Americans or working people? To the point, Shenk might benefit from a step or two away from his computer. Rubbing shoulders with the common folk might hip him to serious problems like acne or Monday Night Football

I think in retrospect I wasted my time on this one. It had a great premise that indulged me into buying this book but who knew dark days lied ahead of me. As I read through the last chapters trying to uncover the mystery, I kept on hoping that there would be something more to it, something more enigmatic, a brilliant twist but I was left with despair. My major problem with this novel was there were not enough, in fact hardly anybody whom the reader could suspect as the possible killer. And bringing out a totally new character at the very end to describe the proceedings only shows a lack of respect to the mind of the reader who had been guessing until now about various other possibilities. I will never touch this author's book again! A mantra for reading thrillers is in believing the hype and read the best of the best-Dan Brown

This book is pure fiction, nothing more. The problem is that is presented as fact - albeit little known fact. I won't repeat the good points made by some of the other reviewers, except to say that I also concur with the criticisms of the book. It makes for difficult reading. It really is not worth the effort, as you will not have any worthwhile information in the end. In fact, if you are a historian or scholar, stay away from it

I bought this audio CD set at the Borders store, without the opportunity to preview the narration. Had I been able to do so, I probably never would have purchased it, let alone paid full bookstore price for it. But I needed an audiobook for my long drive the next day, so I relented. Lesson learned. The audio quality is very insonsistent, at at times very poor, having been transcribed from the original audiotape recording. While the author is obviously greatly informed on the historical and geopolitical details of the Middle East, it does read very much like a history text. With the amount of detail presented, and the wide scope of coverage from one end of Europe reaching into the former Soviet states and beyond, one immediately feels the need for visual aids (maps, timelines, etc.) as guidance. The reader's narration is monotononous, with a very constant cadence which dulls the senses. Each sentence sounds the same as the last. This has the unfortunate effect of rendering each piece of information presented as no more significant than any other, and so all of the events seem to be lost to obscurity. After a while, the narration becomes little more than background noise. No information is retained by the listener

I've seen better high end audio books. I'm certainly not a member of the aforementioned "Scientific School of Audio System Performance Analysis", the only instruments that can accurately measure sound quality are the ones on either side of your head. I listen to what my ears tell me sounds good, and generally, tubes sound good. Which is why this book is sort of a disappointment, you'd think that out of 80 projects there'd be at least one tube phono preamp, but unfortunately there are no tube amps, just a few rants about how tubes don't produce enough power. Who uses more than a watt anyway? Even the transistor amps presented aren't much better than what you could get from Rex or Circuit City, similar schematics could probably be found on the internet for free. Go ahead and buy it if that's the sort of thing you're into, but if its tubes you want, try Morgan Jones' "Building Valve Amplifiers", it doesn't have many schematics but it covers in great detail the layout and contruction of tube amps. Good schematics can be found on the intarnub

Ms Wilson needs to make up her mind whether to write a book of Literary Criticism or a biography. The book suffers from too much critical analysis of Sassoon's poetry and not enough about his life. Either he was an extremely boring and prosaic poet or Ms. Wilson needs to delve deeper into his intellectual and emotional development - really his cricket exploits and his hunting prowess does not lend anything to the very essence of his life. Ms. Wilson's prose is turgid and repetitive. An extremely disappointing work

I know that as a wolf-lover I am a bit biased, but I would still like to say that this book is stupid and incorrect. You see, in this story, three children are left alone. A wolf disguised as their grandmother tricks them into letting him in, because he wants to eat them. Unfortunately, that's where this seemingly charming book starts going downhill. This is just another stupid book that, summed up, says "Wolves are evil, ugly beasts who attack people!! We have to kill them all before they gorge themselves on our children!" Yep, the wolf is depicted as evil in this book. Why couldn't they make it something that actually hurts people, like a bear or a mountain lion? Ignorance, that's why. The wolf is also depicted as stupid and easy to trick in this book. See, near the end, the children try to trick the wolf by telling him he can become immortal by eating gingko nuts. They plan on luring him into their trap, to get rid of him. The wolf instantly falls for it, which is lame. Wolves are among the most intelligent and perceptive animals on Earth! It's practically traditional to make children's books with wolves as villains, and the Chinese seem to loath wolves, but this book crosses the line. Don't let your kids read it unless you want them to think wolves are savage, stupid, man-eating beasts. If they already think so, you'd be neglecting mankind's need to know things even more by letting them read it. In other words, it's a terrible book.

Chris Bohjalian is a gifted stylist, and it pains me to give this book such a low mark. It's hard to say much without giving away the plot, but I found the plot contrived and manipulative -- too clever for its own good. The book started strong, but as the main character became more disassociated with reality, I became more disassociated with the book. I finished it, but it was a struggle

I don't know what to say about this book. It is the single worst book I have ever read in my young life. I feel like I've witnessed a horrible tragedy and am at a loss for words to describe it. I would say at some point in the book, maybe about halfway, every line of dialogue, every characterization, every plot point, is absolutely terrible. This book is truly an offense to literacy, and I cannot understand how a publisher of any merit or author could publish and print this trash. I can only imagine that Robin Cook either allowed a child to write this book,or was chronically drunk while writing it. Either that or he has lost his faculties altogether. I have read children's essays that have been better written. While it would take a novel to explain all the problems with this book, the highlights are: -knowing the mystery 50 pages into the book and being forced to painfully watch the dumb characters discover the mystery -cliche mania with lines like, "I going to get to the bottom of this mystery" and when the character's discover something, giving each other high-fives. -racist remarks about blacks living in harlem about how they like to steal televisions, own guns, and play basketball. -stereotype characters such as mafioso that like to eat spaghetti and named dominick and vinny. -incredible suspension of disbelief when the heros, nyc coroners, fly off to africa on a moments notice because they want to finish their case of a dead body. (also paying for their friends to come too) -wandering around the main installation easily where the evildoers are working, and asking questions, and getting answers to them real easy. -incredible annoying characters that make inappropriate jokes. (i.e. making sarcastic remarks to a guy holding a gun on them) -the book spirals into total madness in the last 50 pages to a beyond implausible ending. I got a sense whoever wrote the end of book was on sleeping pills when he wrote it. If anyone thinks this book is better than two stars, they need their head examined.

Pretentious and boring, too clever for its own good, the only good chapters in this book are the ones about Pontius Pilate and Jesus Christ, and there's not enough of that. And this was the Michael Glenny translation

I've read and enjoyed all the StarFIST novels. This is one of them in name only. It starts like a typical Starfist novel and even ties in some references to Charlie Bass and high level politicians but there the similarity ends. I never did figure out what the author's point was except perhaps to rake in some quick cash. The men of the FIST are hard working, hard fighting Marines who trace an honorable history back to the US Marines of the 19th & 20th century. These "Force Recon" marines are a ruthless bunch of screw-ups who could trace their ancestry back to the Waffen SS. Rather than root for them I soon found myself rooting for the opposition. They invade a fellow member of the confederation, screw-up their primary assignment, fail to get the info they were sent for, kill allied soldiers and airmen, murder helpless civilian prisoners, and assinate the leader of a confederation allied state. Someone should remind the authors that Recon is about getting accurate, timely, information. It's not about blowing things up. I really wasted my money on this book, I definitely won't be the first lemming off the cliff the next time these authors have something to peddle.

I have enjoyed many of Mark's novels (Do You Know That I Love You is my favorite of the bunch), all the time recognizing his severe limitations as a writer. Every character in every Roeder novel speaks with the same voice--all of them, and though his dialog is usually age appropriate for his teen characters, his narrative passages invariably sound as if they were written by someone decades older. There is frequent repetition and redudancy; characters never say anything once if they can say it two or three or four times (though he has definitely improved since his mediocre first novel Ancient Prejudice, which had the unfortunate distinction of glamorizing teen suicide). His characters always (and I mean always) mate for life, which is a beautiful romantic ideal, but ultimately can get tiresome (gay teens are no different from straight ones in their need to play the field a bit before a lifetime commitment). All that said, at his best (DYKWIK, A Better Life, Keeper of Secrets) Mark Roeder writes a compelling and often un-put-downable story. But in Outfield Menace, the bad most definitely outweighs the good. Did Mr. Roeder do ANY research into the time period??? The fifties are certainly a good setting for a gay teen novel (if only as an educational experience for contemporary teens, who don't realize how impossible it was to be gay at that time), but if you want to set a novel in the fifties, don't have a lead male character with a ponytail. No one, but no one, wore a pony tail in the fifties (and certainly not in a small midwest town). Don't have characters use anachronisms like "fifteen minutes of fame." And most of all, don't have characters behave and think in anachronistic wasys. Mark Roeder illustrates the dangers of self publishing. He has apparently made a name for himself (and some money I'd guess), and I must confess, I've bought his novels (glutton for coming out stories that I am) but no legitimate house would publish his novels, at least not without major editing and rewriting, something that a self published author (especially one with an apparently inflated self image) goes without. There has been a renaissance in quality gay teen fiction this past year or two. Major publishers have put out such superb young adult novels as Totally Joe, M or F?, The Hookup Artist, Rainbow Road, Boy Girl Boy. Read them, if only to see how these truly outstanding (and published by legit houses) novels could teach Mark Roeder a thing or two. If you must read Roeder, then stick with his better novels and avoid this serious misstep. Memo to Roeder: if you want to write about a time you don't know about, do your research

Gerd Ludemann writes, "historical research shows with definite clarity that Jesus was not raised from the dead...we must acknowledge...a worldwide historical hoax", (190). A summary review of his treatment will be sufficient to demonstrate that his conclusion is preposterously more forceful than even his strongest individual argument can support. Three streams of thought permeate "The Resurrection of Christ": gospel writers each reworked tradition so as to embellish, invent, or explain away; Peter and Paul experienced hallucination and "vision" experiences proceeding from self-deception; belief in the supernatural is for the ignorant and unscientific. Each of these bespeaks either erroneous assumptions, or avoidance of two hundred years of scholarly response against counter-Christian polemic. In his chapter "Translation and analysis of the Early Christian texts on the Resurrection", Ludemann applies a pattern of subtexts which he titles "purpose and tradition reworked" (re. Gospel writers), and "historical elements". In the former he charges the gospel writers with adding to early tradition simply to reinforce their individual apologetic, or perhaps (he intimates) to cover up some element of embarrassment. For example, Ludemann asserts that we may conclude that Joseph of Arimathea was a member of the Jewish Council (which condemned Jesus), but that Mark (earliest gospel) "likely" invented notions that the same was waiting for the kingdom of God and had become a disciple of Jesus. But Ludemann needs to discredit such notions, for all four gospel writers record Joseph as the rich council member that buried Jesus in his own tomb. Ludemann's case will be much weaker if Jesus is actually buried in a tomb that could be checked later to refute resurrection claims or appearances. Ludemann gets carried away with himself when he, in tabloid fashion, suggests that perhaps the gospel writer is trying to "disinfect a tradition...of a dishonorable burial" of Jesus. This is entirely ad hoc and enjoys absolutely no support from the texts he purports to analyze. Ludemann goes so far as to accuse Matthew, Mark and Luke of being anti-Jewish! (Refer to the ridiculous Appendix 3). Is Christianity a "history of self deception"? Ludemann invests in the rather high-risk prospect of hallucination; for the burden is on Ludemann to successfully argue against several strains of evidence for the physical appearances of Jesus available in the New Testament. That any explanation can be posited does not equal all explanations are equally valid. Ludemann simply fails to evince that we ought to prefer hallucination as that which is best attested to by the various strata of available evidence. 1 Corinthians 15 is the New Testament text historians consistently refer to as central to the discussion of Jesus' multiple appearances. Even critical scholars date the creedal portion of the text (vs. 3-5) to the early 30's AD. The discussion advances from death to burial to resurrection, three physical events. Also, the post resurrection gospel narratives speak of Jesus eating and offering his body for examination, as well as being hugged! Ludemann though, convinced that he has dispensed with those gospel narratives after the fashion mentioned above, and prejudiced by his atheistic presuppositions, introduces hallucination. What accounts for these hallucinations? "Peter's vision is an example of unsuccessful mourning" (165). Paul's "event had a character of light and, like the vision of John, happened in the spirit, i.e., in ecstasy" (47). But Paul does not report "I was in the Spirit" as John does (see Revelation 1). John is deliberately conveying a non-physical experience. Paul is not. When Paul does have opportunity to convey an actual "in the spirit" experience, he does so in terms appropriate to that experience (2 Corinthians 12:2). So we have record of Paul's ability to intentionally differentiate between the physical and the purely spiritual. Ludemann employs his fanciful tendencies beyond credulity when he engages "modern depth psychology" to explain Paul's conversion from zealous persecutor of Christians to "Apostle-in-Chief of a new program of salvation" (170-171). So, we may more accurately adduce historical veracity from a study of Paul's subconscious state, than from the widely accepted facts of Jesus death, burial, empty tomb and appearances! Ludemann's examination of history fails for he maintains a priori rejection of the supernatural. Historians look for the best explanation of the evidence. Yet Ludemann writes, "Who decides at what point of historical study a `theological explanation' ought to begin" (201). This is rife with misunderstanding. One need only confirm that an event occurred in history, regardless of theological implications. Also, simple and sophisticated philosophic arguments conclude that theism (thus supernaturalism) is an entirely logical proposition. Yet Ludemann quotes another author, "[the disciples] believed in phantoms; ... imagined that they were surrounded by miracles; ... took no part whatsoever in the positive science of the time." (175). This ignores the New Testament textual evidence that initially Jesus' disciples did not believe the resurrection had happened, and in other places they marveled at his many miraculous works. Even their primitive sense of science informed their lack of expectation for such a miracle! Ludemann is exactly right when he agrees with Paul that if there is no resurrection, we should abandon Christianity. Sadly, he reaches the wrong conclusion. Self deluded by a proliferation of "one can imagine", "seems to indicate", "likely enough", and "one thus suspects" reasoning, Ludemann boasts "accepting my perishability gives rise to a truer Easter vision". (210). May the reader decide otherwise

Man, oh man, I think this is one of the worst books I've ever read. If I could give The Thanatos Syndrome negative stars, I would! Seriously, half way through, I came to Amazon to see how bad other people thought it was. Boy was I shocked to see that almost all of these reviews were positive! I found the book bizarre, unfocused and poorly written. The volcabulary repeatedly seems misused. The plot is not reasonable given the safeguards that US funding agencies have in place with regards to human experimentation. The physics, engineering, psychology, medical chemistry and biology are uninformed and unrealistic. Characters are introduced as though they will be important to the outcome, only to have them dissipate. And so on. The characters don't even seem like real people. For example, the main character recognizes his cousin by seeing her ankles - and only her ankles - flashing below a curtain, and yet he is apparently unaware of what degree of cousins they are. How could someone know a person that well, but still only have a vague idea of how they were related by blood? Or: one of the more reliable male characters blows duck hunting calls at women he finds attractive - as though he really thinks this will attract them. C'mon, if the guys a nut (and anyone who tries to seduce women by talking 'duck' to them is nuts!), write him as a nut the whole way through, don't make him the cornerstone of reliability at the book's climax! The book's title isn't even explained, for crying out loud. Thanatos means death in Greek, I believe, but I could never understand what the author/editors/audience thought was dying. I won't read this one again, nor will I look for anything else by Percy Walker.

Very politically manipulative primer that only gives 5/8 of the story. I add 1/8 because the author does acknowlege some of the huge problems caused by unbridled global capitalism, but then quickly glosses them over basically saying that these effects are unfortunate, but that free global trade is best for everyone in the long run. There is a lot of interesting incidental information as various terms are explained, but too often this reference becomes a one-sided sermon for free trade. These are the same deceptions that Robert Reich started pushing under Clinton. Repubs kept the song going without missing a beat. Most of both Dem and Repub reps support neoliberal policies - the rich get richer in both parties. Feel free to read to learn about terms, just be aware that the author is leading you down a highly biased path

I tried, I really did, but I couldn't get beyond 100 pages. I love Iris Johansen books but it seemed she had no joy in writing this one, almost as if she were forced to do so. It contained none of her usual style. The dialogue was choppy and boring and nothing made you care about the characters. I'm still a fan and hope the next book is written in more typical IJ style.

A little less psycho babble and a bit more logistical information would have suited me better. Ms. Cantrell spends the majority of the book being a relationship/marriage counselor, and though it's true issues become larger in smaller spaces, there are more issues for women cruisers than just their relationship dynamics. As I said, practical logistical information would have suited me better.

"Ha ha ha hah ha hah!" That's Stirling laughing all the way to the bank. Or at least I hope that's what he is doing. But sadly I suspect he more likely feels his Wiccan/SCA/DnD-infused vision of a post-apocalyptic society is a reasonable, nay, likely path we'll follow should selective physical laws break down. Quick! Stop me! I feel the need to wave my sword, sing a Gaelic song, and break out my cauldron! The genre requires we make a leap of faith. And as a fan of the genre, I do so willingly. But having made the leap, it is annoying at best to be forced through this "Tolkein as faith" drivel. But as I will likely read the entire series (remember, I love the genre) I have to hope that Stirling leans towards the "thanks for the buck buddy" and is himself laughing at us all. But a picture is worth a thousand words and his mug on the inside cover tells me he believes this nonsense! My recommendation? Read the book. Laugh a bit. Maybe laugh a lot. But do this with the library's copy, not one you paid for

I couldn't read past the second chapter. Roberts is just perpetuating the same old stereotypes about Muslims. It really steamed me that she used a verse of the Quran out of context for the title page of "The Bitter". "Your wives are your fields, so go to your fields as you like" isn't meant as a justification of sexual abuse and has never been interpreted as so by real scholars of the Quran. I'm not going to finish this book, because I'd rather not be reminded of how much I am viewed as some sort of exotic, oppressed "other" type of woman, thanks.

A pamphlet would have accomplished what this guy said in the entire book! I wanted to strangle him! Repetitive, condescending, overly simplified and so BOOOoorrring!!! Here is the nuts of it all: Pick a stable stock with a narrow spread between bid and ask. Buy 2000 shares and then sell it 1/16 higher right away. Everything else is simply preamble... over and over and over. Hope I saved you 20 bucks

'Introducing Postmodernism' is a good source to gather names of philosophers, architects, artists, anthropologists, linguists, and everyone in between that have been somehow connected to PM. The problem, and it is a big one, is that this style of tour de force writing does little to contextualize all these diverse disciplines. Sure, if you only have half an hour to read up on PM, you can whip through this book and go on with your life. But if you're wanting to really absorb the phenomenon, and perhaps go on to read more, this book is NOT the place to start. Check out David Harvey's 'Condition of Postmodernism.' This will rip the top of your head clean off! It's much more weighty (in every sense of the word), but your understanding of PM will vastly improve, and will better prepare you to go on to other important writers of the 'genre'

I can't give this book more than two stars, and that's being generous. Mr. Hall does present some interesting ideas, but unfortunately, his editors have done him a huge disservice. Here are the first three sentences of Stage I, on page 23; Essentially what we have now--nanoscale science and technology--including the ability to image at the atomic scale with scanning probe microscopes, and a very limited ability to manipulate, that is, by pushing things around with the same scanning probes. A scanning probe is essentially like feeling something with a stick. Because you have a computer behind it, you can touch it in a very close grid of points and produce a picture. I made it through the first fifty pages, and it didn't get any better. I don't know if Mr. Hall had a final read before publication, or not, but someone should have stopped this book from being published until it was properly edited.

I am leading a Christian study group using popular films. I was hoping this book could help me use film to illustrate some Scriptural truth. Unfortunately, the author was much less interested in a Christian message than to make sure he took every opportunity to insult the "church." I know that churches have problems and hurt people, but it is not as common as this author seems to assert. He seems very angry at the church (and for some reason, all of western culture - especially America.) Living in N. Ireland could make one suspicious of religion I assume, but despite his claims to be a Chrisitan so concerned about commmunity, he seems to enjoy tearing down more than teaching and building up. It is a good study of film (not movies - he definatley comes from a critical point of view and not that of an average person) but not very useful in the context of the church. That's my take anyway. God bless

I admit, I haven't finished this book. A friend recommended it to me as I have been having problems with insomnia. I was interested in reading a book about women's health issues and this one sounded intriguing UNTIL she started in with her tarot cards, interest in astrology and angels. Granted, I am not a firm believer in just "the hard facts" but its really hard to believe anything this woman writes after it is clear that common sense isn't alternative enough for her!

If you are interested in cheap tricks rather than substance, this is the book for you. There is no easy way to learn Japanese. There are easier ways, but no easy ways. Where is the beef? Not here

You all like misogynist comics

This is just another attack by organized medicine on Alternative treatments and therapies, in particular chiropractic. Dr. Rosenfeld comes across as biased, ignorant and at times completely malicious in the information he provides. His assertion that he "loves chiropractors is disingenous at best." He prefers non-specific manipulation by a doctor who can also prescribe (toxic) drugs. He lists warnings about chiropractic that are extremely rare, occuring one in many millions, and suggests that these are common occurances. He fails to mention that the practice of (Allopathic) medicine is the third leading cause of preventable death in The United States, which is the very reason we need more practitioners of the so called "Alternatives". If you want good advice, start by avoiding books on alternative medicine written by medical doctors, especially this one!!

Art is a young man fresh out of college, and has a curious set of friends: Arthur, an attractive gay man; the enigmatic Phlox with whom Arthur works; and the distinctly odd hedonist Cleveland. Art is uncertain of his sexuality, being torn between Arthur and Phlox. Cleveland is a threat to the stability of anyone with whom he comes into contact. "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh" was a well-received, yet while at times I found it entertaining and witty, in truth it's a very bumpy piece of work in which the characters don't really convince. The plot is unconvincing from the first, and descends into absurdity towards the end. In summary, it reads very much as a first effort, perhaps an experiment, but I found it baffling that anyone could consider it a mature piece of prose. G Rodgers

One at the front: The really own words of the master are excellent. One must make sure that only 43 sides of the only 7 x 5 inch small book are interviews with Bruce Lee. The rest consists of interviews with the former interviewers. However, as a paperback this book costs not really a fortune. But the words of the master are absolutely worth-while, as already mentioned at the beginning

I too read the TA for Tots to my 3-5 year-old 30 years ago. She loved it a lot so I've been looking for it again, this time for my grand-daughter. Even though the title is different from the original one I knew, I purchased it and read it as soon as I received it. Bottomline: this story is _not_ the original one and I don't like it at all. Other than showing stereotypical Happy Prince and Princess fairy tale characters (which I can live with up to a point), I saw bunches of red flags when I got to the evil witch, drawn with a full-blown ugly face "who was very clever and devised a very wicked plan". Unhappy because there are so many happy warm-fuzzy people around she freely starts giving away cold pricklies. Without enough warm fuzzies (we read earlier) it puts people "in danger of developing a sickness in their backs which caused them to shrivel up and die". Ouch. So instead of embracing the wisdom of old women, here we have another story that villifies them (OK, I'm a psychotherapist also and know all too well how these images affect us all). No, it's not funny, and there is no way I would introduce this book to any child. The book also does not do a good job of showing clear examples of what warm fuzzies and cold pricklies really are, as the original book did. Too bad, for using images of "warm fuzzies" and "cold pricklies" is an easy way to introduce feelings and consequences of behaviors to young children. I am returning the book.

Eliot Cohen has an impressive background in policy work (OSD) and academia (Naval War College and Harvard). I had high hopes for this book because I thought his experience with the military combined with his academic work would produce a focused and well-grounded work. I was disappointed. I never really bought his argument that political leaders can lead war better than generals. He seemed to cherry pick leaders than fit his mold. I could not believe that someone who works so closely with the military would generalize military leadership in such a stereotypical way. The article might have made a good article in a foreign affairs journal, but the author seemed to fill out the book with a lot of interesting but not really relevant historical stories and facts. The Lincoln chapter providing nothing that has not been stated numerous times in more detailed and focused work. The Churchill chapter was the best. Cohen obviously has extensively studied Churchill. His sections on how the historical view of Churchill have ebbed and flowed over the years was well done, thought not rally tied to the focus of the book. I learned the most from the Ben-Gurion, since I knew the least about him. The book may be useful to an undergraduate class studying political leadership or foreign policy, but beyond that the book unfortunately offers little that is new or of great interest.

I was quite surprised and disappointed with this book. It is not at all a horror story, not at all mysterious, really it was very boring. Normally I enjoy Koontz books.

Just know this book has you developing code in the SDK, not Visual Studio .NET. If anything that should turn you away from buying this. Any .NET programmer WILL be working with Visual Studio and not an SDK. The SAMS teach yourself C# in 24 hours was completely written for VS .NET, so I am confused as to why this book was not. Get another book as this one will be only of use for terminology and OOP theory. It was a waste on Money for me.

"The End of Democracy" (2003) is the best answer to this theory

This book was given to me by my cousin who thought I might find faith after hearing the eulogy I gave at my father's funeral a year ago, in which I professed that I do not know if there is a God or not, but that the best we can do is be good people. I am agnostic, in that I am fully aware that there is no factual evidence that God exists and that there is no evidence that God does not exist. To be clear - if there was, I am pretty sure it would be widely publicized. The gift was a loving gesture and I am sincerely appreciative of it. However, I have several issues with the book. More than I can possibly iterate at this point. This book does not even mention agnosticism. As the author was educated at Yale, I am sure he must be aware of agnosticism and chose to omit it from his book. I can only presume that it was omitted with a reason, perhaps it was too hard to explain in the face of his assertion that there is evidence for God (see below - all circumstantial and requiring leaps of faith). Without getting into too many specifics, the evidence he uses in the Case for Faith comes from obviously Christian sources - which are surely biased. This is equivalent to reporting on terrorist acts by only interviewing terrorists. Certainly one's reporting would be validating reasons for such atrocities. To be clear I am only drawing this distinction to make the point - a true investigative reporter would look to include both sides of the story and present facts as opposed to opinion. Had Strobel intended to provide a balanced view, he would have used non-christian scientists and believers of various faiths. Strobel's statements portend to be fact, but are generally lacking any actual evidence and in some cases are easily determined to be incorrect. A couple of examples are 1) His statement that Buddhism says there is no God (various sects of Buddhism believe in gods, state there is no Creator God or do not take a stand on the matter) and 2) His statements on lack of evidence for evolution - specifically macroevolution (which is fairly well supported by actual evidence and observation - and believed to be accurate by 99% of biologists). Regarding evolution, there is actually evidence for macroevolution - although he claims there is none. This is where I have serious problems with the book. In my opinion, the book is more for current believers who need/desire to strengthen their faith, which I believe is a good thing. However, his information lacks factual support and evidence, which to me is a bad thing. I believe that most of the people who would read it would not get to the point of questioning the information in it. If one were to question it, one could easily find their faith destroyed if the information one held to be true (and which subsequently was the basis for faith) is found to be false. He states that there is evidence for intelligent design; however the evidence he offers is only theory in the colloquial sense - i.e. a guess. The Theory of evolution is a theory in the scientific sense - i.e. supported by on observation and evidence. Another example is when Strobel quotes "...when it comes right down to it, the only person or thing I know of worth my faith - the only one supported by the evidence of history and archaeology and literature and experience - is Jesus." The Buddha (meaning one who is awake), or Siddhartha Gautama (his real name), was an actual person, supported by all of the above listed proof of Jesus. Mohammad was also an actual person supported by all of the above. His 3 reasons for disbelief in reincarnation (for regular people): 1) If James loses 3 pounds, he is still James, if he becomes a grasshopper he is not James - because he is not human 2) Support for past lives - such as memories, are explainable by psychological explanations, lucky guesses, or demonic possession 3) The only expert on this question, Jesus of Nazareth, said it doesn't happen. To respond: 1) To believe in resurrection, one must believe that there is a substance which makes us who we are that is not tied to our earthly form. It is not tied to being human, but to existing. 2) How do you discount the possibility that reincarnation exists by asserting that demon possession exists - there is factual evidence for neither. 3) To be in line with this reason, one must already accept the divinity of Jesus and that the resurrection actually happened. His arguments for the truth of the resurrection (below) are weak and offer no support for the fact, only that people claimed it happened. We should not confuse the fact that Jesus existed with the belief that he was the son of God and specifically that he was reincarnated. Here are his proof that God exists: 1) God makes sense of the Universe's origin 2) God makes sense of the universe's complexity 3) God makes sense of moral values (his argument is - if there are absolute moral values then God must exists God makes sense of the resurrection (see proof below). 4) God can be immediately experienced. To respond: 1) Theories can be used to explain phenomenon that correlate to reality, but are not truly an explanation of reality. One still must take a leap of faith to believe his assertion. While it may explain questions about the universe - how do we know it to be accurate? Put another way, there are other explanations that could wrap up the universe - additionally, one presumes he is speaking of the Christian God and discounting other belief systems. 2) See my first objection. Same point. 3) Science believes in hard observable facts being the basis for making assertions. The basis of scientific fact is that it is able to be recreated by anyone. To take the leap from the fact that there are widely accepted truths to being proof of God requires faith. He gives examples of ideas that most of the civilized world thinks are wrong, and uses them as the basis for absolute moral values. He omits that moral values have changed over time and are evolving. While I do believe that things are wrong, one can easily recognize that they are not always absolute...for example, it is not ok to kill, unless you are in danger - or the other person killed others (presuming you believe in capital punishment). 4) His example here is that you cannot prove the world exists...fair enough, but one can prove there are universally experienced events that we can demonstrate over and over again. For example, we can do a physics experiment and everyone involved will see the same results (barring psychological conditions). While we may not be able to prove that the world exists, we can confirm common experience, which is essentially what the world is...the ground on which we all interact - whether or not that is created in the mind (the example he gives for how the world may not exist is that all of the world may only be in our mind). Proof Jesus was resurrected: 1) The location of Jesus' burial was widely known and agreed on. 2) The Sunday after his crucifixion the tomb was empty, which is agreed upon by many (or all). 3) Various groups of people experienced appearances of Jesus alive again. 4) The original disciples suddenly and sincerely believe that Jesus was risen from the dead - even enough to die for this belief. To respond: 1) This is fact and Jesus did exist. Not sure how it relates to his divinity. 2) This could be explained in several ways, hard to use this as proof of his divinity. One can suppose it is, but it takes a leap of faith - this book is supposed to explain how to have faith - but continually requests we make leaps of faith. 3) Writings of people who claims to experience Jesus can hardly be taken as fact. Other religious text would claim the same about their prophets, gods, etc. 4) The disciples had a vested interest in proclaiming the divinity of Jesus. This is not actual evidence. This is equivalent to stating that the bible is true because it says it is true. Additionally, Strobel chooses which parts of the bible are literal and which are metaphorical. In dealing with "Objection 5" Strobel notes that the descriptions of Hell in the bible are metaphorical. It is hard to discern how someone can pick and choose which parts of the bible are literal and which are metaphorical. It is convenient to do so when your explanations support your understanding. I am not sure how you justify doing this. He states that only one religion can be right or God is schizophrenic. One supposes his assertion is that Christianity is the one true religion or God is schizophrenic. This again is a leap of faith. One must also presume that the various religions are not human error in interpreting God's message. My stand is this, we do not know, and to have faith is great, however by creating a context in which one can have faith by providing erroneous and undeniably false/biased information, a false faith is created. Faith should be born out of one's desire and belief system. One should not need to discount others because of their faith. To me, doing so indicates weakness in their faith - not strength.

I wanted to like this book but was very disappointed that all it included was a mish mash of Vanity Fair articles from 1990-2002 with follow up paragraphs that appear to be right out of People magazine

For those of you who have not yet read this book: this book is about a white-wannabe black girl who pays way too much attention to her friend's puberty. I have never read a worse book in my life. This book is shallow, boring, and completely pointless

The book jacket for "The Ruins" offers a can't-miss premise: a group of post-grad American tourists at play in Mexico jump at the chance for a little adventure among Mayan ruins but find but then find themselves in unimaginable danger. It's the stuff of great Summer thrillers ready to be taken to the beach. But 319 pages later, the reader is left to wonder whether or not the publisher put the wrong book in the jacket. Almost immediately, you'll notice that Smith's writing is as dense as the jungles that make the setting. However, despite the endless stream of words, his descriptions are often threadbare. Plus, there are no chapter breaks, which eventually pushes the pace until it feels like an assignment to continue. Next, the characters themselves begin to fall flat. There are only really two couples to keep track of, and yet it's difficult for the first third of the book to distinguish them. There is little to keep you interested in what they're doing or why they might be doing it. Smith's attempts at developing these four as characters come in fits and spurts. This seems obviously haphazard and hurried - the author is jamming in backstory whenever needed to explain characters' actions as if he were patching leaks in a dam. By the end of the book, the foursome seems to be as disinterested in each other as the reader is in them. And for the readers who are hoping to discover something of interest in the setting such as Mayan mythology or archeological lore, forget it. Aside from language barriers with the locals, there is no reason why this fantastical story couldn't have been set in the wilds of the Rocky Mountains, the Saharan desert, or anywhere else. The danger posed has nothing to do with Mexico, archeology or mythology at all. Ah yes, the danger posed. Well, I can't say much at all because anyone could give away the entire book with one line of explanation - that's how thin the plot is. The numerous other reviews that fault this as a short story masquerading as a novel are exactly right. Suffice it to say that when you do realize what the danger is (and you'll realize it well before any of the well-educated characters do), it's a real eye-roller, as if to say "I read this many pages for THIS?". By the time the story concludes, it's more irritating than suspenseful. The characters take so long to blithely undertake any course of action at all that you'll start rooting against them. Eventually scenes of gore start piling up in an obvious and lazy attempt to interject some action, but even aside from being misdirected, it's too little too late. This book could have been an adventure, a supernatural thriller, a survival tale, or a horror screenplay. It could have even taken the high road as an examination on people's reactions to situations of extreme stress: some take the lead, even enjoying the challenge, while others whither into a shell of hopelessness. But none of the possibilities ever come to fruition in this disappointing effort.

Erickson, a notorious communist and bogus half baked historian is not to be trusted with his works, all based on bogus, doctored and unrelaible Soviet semi fictions intended to advance the cause of Bolshevik invincability.

I must agree with my 1 star friend. This book doesn't deliver. It spends all this time talking about things that we could grasp just by looking in the help section of the program. It goes over basic things several times and makes it sound very complicated when it is totally simple. This book is good for people who have alot of time to waste and money

I would very much like to know the names of all the songs contained in this book BEFORE I decide to buy it. How may I access the "contents" page listing all the songs in this book? PETER de NIES

I recently decided to become vegetarian, so I got this book to read. I was very disapointed. I think this book provides good information about nutrional and meals, yet is written in a boring, scientific way. This book may appeal more to parents of vegetarians and vegans and adult vegetarians, than to teenagers. This book contains a lot of recipies, and some of them sound good, but most of them are far more complex than a teenager would be willing to cook. I would reccomend this book to parents of teenage vegetarians, but there are better books written for the teens themself. This book also has so many negative quotes including a whole page of someone making fun of vegetarian food and rambling about how they hate tofu. I don't think these are nessecary in a book for vegetarians, there is enough of that without reading about it. However, if you seriously want to research about being a vegetarian this book won't hurt, it is just a dissapointment

This book doesn't even deserve a star. I just fell upon it, on a bookshelf with loads of old books in my house. I'm nearly 17 years old, and perhaps this book is the kind that you appreciate as you get older, but honestly, I don't see myself enjoying this book even in 20 years... I've read so many reviews raving about how 'poetic, sensual, wonderful' it is and what a talent the person is...sorry I don't see it! Anyone can write a bunch of sex stories. I didn't see anything poetic in the writing...it was plain. As for sensual and arousing? Hardly. It was crude, and vulgar. It was sex, sex, sex... and presented harshly, with none of the sensuality, the sweetness, the gentle pleasure one likes to associate with sex... it was boring, repetitive, and I'll admit disturbing. What was the point of the story where the Hungarian whatever forced himself on his adolescent children? Or the raped little boy? It was just weird. There's just the sex, and no development of any points she may be trying to make. It's kind of just left there...unfinished... unsatisfying. Frankly, it was so distasteful (VULGAR), I was shocked. And I'm not religious, puritan, conservative or any such thing...quite the opposite, I have an open mind. But this book left me cold

This book really wasn't at all what I was expecting, or what the title would lead one to believe. The subtitle, "In Search of Grace O'Malley and Other Legendary Women of the Sea," makes it sound as if this will be a biographical account of the life of Grace O'Malley, with supplemental information on other historical female seafarers. Not so. The first two chapters are devoted to the famous pirate queen herself, and Sjoholm only provides the skimpiest bits of information. I knew almost nothing about Grace O'Malley going into the book, and I know little more than that now. The other women included are discussed in even sparer detail, and most of them aren't even real historical figures, but legendary story characters and mythological creatures like mermaids. She even talks about Pippi Longstocking! Not what I was expecting at all... "The Pirate Queen" is actually devoted far more to Sjoholm's travels in search of information on female women of the sea than it is to the information itself. I learned more about Sjoholm and her own life than about the women she supposedly set out to study. She describes the inns she stayed at, the weather, the tourists she met, her own childhood, the abundance of "personal bath mats" in northern European hotels... almost everything but Grace O'Malley and her cohorts. In fact, the primary underlying theme in the book seems to be how the author came to the decision to change her last name from Wilson to Sjoholm; a story which, to be quite honest, I really couldn't care less about. I bought the book hoping to learn about interesting historical figures. It turned out to be a travel memoir, and a comparatively uninteresting one at that. This is a shame, really. Sjoholm includes just enough information on the various historical women she mentions - Grace O'Malley herself, Bessie Millie, Janet Forsyth, Christian Robertson, Eliza Fraser, Isobel Gunn, Betty Mouat, Freydis Eiriksdottir, Skipper Thuridur, Trouser-Beret, Alfhild, the "herring lassies," and numerous mythological characters - to whet my appetite, but then fails to deliver a full, satisfying portrait of any of them. She raises more questions than she answers, and I'd need to buy numerous additional books to find all the missing information. You may also notice, given the names, that nearly all the women mentioned are northern European in origin. Sjoholm entirely omits women seafarers active in other parts of the world, such as the famous pirates Anne Bonney and Mary Read who, though from Europe, sailed the Caribbean. As for Sjoholm's writing style, the book is an easy read, but not a very enjoyable one. Sjoholm's writing is given to an abundance of nearly nauseating metaphors. For example: "The lava fields looked like vanilla cake batter poured over thick jumbles of dates, walnuts, and chocolate chips. In the sun the moss could also look like lemon yogurt spooned generously over granola" (pg. 222). Flowery, gratuitous, and often ridiculous images like this are to be found in almost every paragraph... peppered throughout the book like poppyseeds in a muffin, you might say... It's not the worst book I've ever read, but I do wish I'd spent my money on something else. It doesn't deliver what it promises, and there are plenty of more interesting and informative books out there to pick up instead

Am I the only person that felt this book was twisted, disjointed, and something was just not working? The beginning was great but the second half left a lot to be desired. This could have been a great story, the author veered off track or something

Do you feel different from people around you? Do they resent your ingenuity? Have you been kept from achieving your full potential by tradition-bound brutes who live only for base needs? Do you long for the company of others like yourself, who, tragically but inevitably, are biologically destined to wipe these shorter, darker subhumans from the face of the earth? Congratulations! You are either in the aryan nations or the Clan of the Cave Bear fan club, possibly both! (I exaggerate- you could be a nineteenth century English settler in Australia, or a Boer in South Africa, or maybe you just like Larry Niven, but that's beside the point) I can forgive Auel for the historical inaccuracies in the book. In the late 1970's when she did her research, we didn't have the genomic tools to reconstruct the lives of Neanderthals, and even now enough controversy persists to keep the discussion page lively over at Wikipedia. Ultimately we'll never know for sure what the paleolithic was like, and Auel's is if nothing else a vivacious fictional suggestion. Similarly, her bloated, almost puffy writing style is excusable in a first-time author, though one wonders what parasite infected her editor. I haven't read her more recent works, but I imagine she has probably improved. Even with the pendulous sentences Clan is not unreadable. What infuriates me is the casually racist subtext of the story, nowhere critiqued or even acknowledged. The story reads like a near-literal historicization of Helena Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine on the fall of the "aryans"- who interbred with "subhumans" introducing the world to, oh I dunno, domination by the unworthy, blind tradition, suppression of the individual, all the hallmarks of the book's neanderthal culture. Of course, even in this the blond-haired blue-eyed Ayla is innocent, overpowered by a brutish thug. Against this master narrative, all the admittedly interesting side notes about plant-based medicine and flintknapping make no impression. I would recommend anyone interested in paleontology take a trip to a museum or cruise the internet, and give Auel's books a wide berth. Also? Enough rape scenes already

We went to a book siging to get this book. Truthfully, I wasn't sure if the book was going to live up to the hype. T.O. graciously signed books and all proceeds went to charity. I was surprised this book was so well written. My four year old wants me to read it over and over again. He doesn't like for me to read to him but he loves this book! It is the perfect book for children. Its not too short but not too long. I have read this book at least 10 times in the past 3 days. I would recommend this book to anyone with small children. It is great book for little boys because of the football theme. However, the lesson is something everyone can appreciate. Great Book

I am soooo glad that I checked this out of the library and didn't pay for this garbage. I really should of listened to the reviews on this book before I wasted a day reading it. Actually, about half-way through I skimmed. The first couple chapters weren't bad, but the rest was just awful. Gracie, her ex-husband, her friends...they are the most pathetic, shallow bunch of fakes I've ever read about. What's even worse is that's the authors real life (maybe not the divorce part, but the rest of it). In the end, all I have to say is DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME!! I should of listened to the others, but I didn't, and now I regret that I wasted so much time when I could of been reading something worth while.

Paul Ehrlich may understand butterflies more than most of us do, but he definitely does not understand how the real world in general and the human society in particular works. He just does not seem to have sufficiently organized brain cells to think realistically about the world. This book starts with the bold statement that "he had understood the population explosion for quite some time". Nevertheless, the whole book proves that it's not the case. All his reasoning is based on the worst possible extrapolation of the worst imaginable short-term trend. His assumptions therefore include the "intelligent" assumption that there won't ever be any technological progress in the future; the climate will evolve in the worst possible way, and so forth. It's not surprising that he predicted that there would be mass starvation in the U.S. in the 1980s, and even when this was shown to be complete nonsense, he repeated the same prediction for the 1990s. Why does he - and people like him - continue to produce predictions that have been humiliated so many times by the actual course of history? It's because of their religion. Maybe they don't call it a "religion", but it is a religion nevertheless. Jehovah's Witnesses typically believe that there is going to be a judgement day. Because it did not occur in 1918 and other years for which it was predicted, they are a bit more careful and vague in their predictions nowadays. Malthus had done very similar errors as Ehrlich, but you may think that in the 20th century, people could know more than Malthus knew many years ago. But Ehrlich does not know more. In some sense, even Karl Marx himself could be viewed as a producer of catastrophic predictions. Marx predicted that something wrong would occur with capitalism as such, and it would be globally replaced by communism. (This is what I call a truly catastrophic prediction.) Marx was wrong, of course, because he completely misunderstood the magic power of the society and of the market to improve things that need to be improved and its ability to self-regulate and accomodate to new conditions. Ehrlich is repeating all errors of Marx and many other errors, too. But other people who have a different kind of a religious belief that we must simply be approaching a judgement day can't learn from Jehovah's Witnesses mistakes. Of course that Paul Ehrlich's reasoning has nothing to do with rational approach to important questions. (Bjorn Lomborg may be an example of a person who tries to solve very similar questions - namely these speculative questions about the long-term food problems - rationally.) Ehrlich confuses the total amount of food available today and the total production of food; he does not understand that the efficiency of agriculture can increase much like the population or even more; he does not understand that the growth of the population in the developed world would be naturally reduced if it became difficult to feed children, and so forth. He just does not understand the "invisible hand" of free markets and the visible hand of scientific and technologica progress and the power of human decisions. His reasoning could easily be proved wrong if he simply tried to make similar predictions about the past. But it was not his main goal to find a realistic prediction for the future. His goal was to write down pseudorationally sounding justifications of his religious preconceptions that would impress many people who are not exactly smart. The similarity between Ehrlich's predictions of mass starvation and the recent predictions of catastrophic global warming is not just a superficial coincidence. Find the book "Boiling Point" by Ross Gelbspan at this website - one of the silly recent books about the climate change disasters that expect us. Among the 15 mostly positive reviews of the book, you will also find a 5-star review by Paul Ehrlich of Stanford himself! The global warming alarmists continue with the traditions of Paul Ehrlich. It is still the same pseudoscience and people will apparently always believe this kind of stuff because there are only two infinite things: the Universe and human stupidity, and I am not sure about the Universe

I bought this book and was sorely disappointed. Nothing specific. Just lots of references to self analyzation to see what you think you want to do. You could do this yourself without a book

I started reading this immediately after the last REH compilation and there could not be a greater difference in story telling. While REH was first and foremost a story teller, Pressfield uses one of the absolute worst devices in his recount of a grandson of his grandfather's remembering his conversations with a client who knew the famous Alcibiades. This, as previous reviewers have mentioned, creates a large gap between reader and story. But why do this? Why use such a crappy method of story telling? I guess it pads the book with unnecessary dialogue. All in all, it's a slow, uninspired, day dream story. So crappy that I felt it necessary to write this review echoing previous harsh reviews. I want my money back

As a former student of Ms. Morris, I will state that she and William Morris were quite emphatic about keeping the teachings sacred and authentic as taught by Grand Master Takata. Her history is to this day accurate

This book is very disappointing, as is most of Gunaratna's work on islamist terrorism. It's the sort of stuff governments and many of the public want to hear, ie. bin Laden and AQ are everywhere, responsible for every terrorism attack and all regional terorist groups (such as JI) are AQ franchises - total bollocks. The book lacks solid and verifiable reserach and is written by a "scholar" who spends most of his time doing alarmist media commentary

This year, 60% of college entries will be female. Look at this spring's honor role listings. Last year, 78% of honor role members in my community were female. Schools are fails boys - not girls. If you wish to waste your time on a politically correct diatribe that is full of anecdotal and subjective pap, then get this book. If you want to really improve the quality of education, there are thousands of reads better than this

I recently read Robert Monroe's first book, "Journeys Out of Body" and found it to be a disappointment - it was just weird. As I noted in my review of that book, I had hoped that the author would discuss his use of sound, for which he is allegedly noted. As I purchased this book at the same time and had nothing else to read, I thought I'd give it a try. The book did start out with a brief discussion of some of his "research" and I thought that, perhaps, this book might actually have some real substance. That belief; however, quickly disappeared. By the time I had reached the half-way point in the book, nothing remained but a schizophrenic quagmire of incomprehensible gibberish. How does total garbage like this manage to get printed?! There are those that claim that Monroe was a highly left-brained individual who delved into the realm of the creative right-brain. If this book is any indication, one can't help but wonder if Monroe was missing his entire left hemisphere! There is nothing logical or, for that matter, even coherent in the babble spewed across the endless pages of this book. It would have been worthwhile if Monroe had actually described his experiments and resulting data in a scientific manner. Instead, he chose to spew his incoherent ramblings about his own, personal, dream experiences: these wander so aimlessly, from paragraph to paragraph, that one can't help but wonder what real point, if any, he was trying to make. The really sad thing is that I had really hoped to find a genuinely scientific study of his work - I was actually quite interested in the topic. Having now been subjected to two of his useless books, I'm amazed that they're still in print. This is pseudo-science at its absolute worst.

An elf appearing to Harry Potter warned him not to return for a second year to the school of sorcery. The Chamber of Secrets, he said, had been opened and a monster is lurking. Harry goes anyway and is the only one who can hear the monster, challenge it and save students who have been "petrified" by the monster. Age group interest: early teen. I wanted to see what all the rave was about. Lots of action, not much morale. Trish New, author of The Thrill of Hope, South State Street Journal

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This book disappointed me after reading Martins letters. Although this book provides a very different angle on value investing and has some useful ideas the writing style is poor and lacks clarity. There are much better books on analysing companies I suggest Financial Statement Analysis by Martin Fridson and Fernando Alvarez.

I must have missed something about this book. I can't believe that Minority Report and Total Recall, two movies that I did enjoy, came from this author. The stories seem to be missing something. Perhaps, this version should not have been the first works by this author for me to have read

The only redeeming points of this book are the few conversations that the author has with his uncle. The rest is just quotations from other books. There is enough original material here for about a chapter and a half. The author was set on making a book out of it so he just padded it with things that other authors had said. I read it to the end though. Probably because the author has a very nice writing style. He is probably a good playwrite though I have never read any of his plays. He just didn't have enough material for a book here. I'm surpised it got published

Read the Microsoft documents, white papers and manuals on the Microsoft web site instead. This book offers no easier approach to understanding than the techno-drill available from Microsoft. Who writes these reviews anyway? I can't believe anybody really liked this book

I am ashamed to say I read this entire book. I kept hoping it would get better but it didn't. It is filled with typos and poor organization of thoughts and topics. Clarkson actually spells Mel Gibson's name wrong several times throughout the book, and refers to Lethal Weapon director Richard Donner as "Dormer" for several pages! He jumps back and forth from one movie production to another making it difficult to follow. Lastly, he relies on the accounts of people who had met Mel Gibson at one time but who had either a personal or professional conflict with him. In the retelling of these conflicts and what went down, we hear one point of view only - and generally that is the view of someone who is harboring bitterness and resentment towards Gibson, so their accounts are slanted and untrustworthy. The best part of the book is the end for two reasons: Clarkson finally gets to Gibson's most recent project, The Passion of the Christ. The subtitle and the picture on the back of the book gives the impression this project will be a major focus of the book, but after 300 pages of reading, I was still waiting for the subject to come up. I have to say I felt that this was the only well written part of the whole book - thoughtful and interesting. The second reason the end is the best part of the book is that it was finally over. I'm sorry to be so blunt, but I can't help it. I highly recommend reading the book about the making of the Passion of the Christ - you can learn a lot about Gibson there - but I cannot recommend this biography