Is it true?
	My mother in-law was actually responsible for Billy Milligan while he was in the Athens State hospital in Ohio.  I've had a chance to read this book, and although very good, what my mother-in-law tells me is much, much different.

She cared for him during his entire stay there.  She said that he had more psychology and parapsychology books in his room than she could have ever imagined.  She also said that his IQ was off the charts.  She believes (and she has a doctorate in psychology) he only has FOUR distinct personalities.  Raven being one of them.  Billy had the abilitiy and knowledge to manipulate his condition, making it appear much more severe.

Of course, she can't write anything about this, because Billy's publicist made everyone caring for him sign a waiver saying they wouldn't.  Yes... Billy Milligan has a publicist.

He also was a millionaire (because he exploited his disease) and drove a corvette on the weekends they let him go home.... yep... they let Billy Milligan have weekends.

This book is a very good interpretaion on what could possibly been going on in Billy's head.  However, after talking with someone who was actually there, and knew him well.... makes me second guess the validity of it


K-Man's Book Reviews
	A very disappointing book, and again, makes me very wary of any item on a "New York Times Best Seller List" or any other list, and really any big name reviewer recommendation.

This book has one 50 page chapter which is excellent - the recap of the Thompson "Shot heard around the world" homerun. If you are a baseball fan as I am, that (barely) made the book worthwhile. The other 700 pages are disjoint, incomprehensible, and really trivial. You come away thinking "I really don't care bout this stuff" - I don't care about the dynamics of trash, about J Edgar Hoover's bathroom habits, Klara Sax's artistic depression and annoying infatuations about roof tops, about characters that just don't have much depth to really care about. At the end, even potentially interesting characters like Albert (the one on the baseball quest) become hard to bear. The whole book in fact had the feel of going to a senior citizen home.

I read this book, as perhaps others did, expecting a book about the mafia or about other figures in the underworld. What I got was a book with a good first chapter, some interesting tidbits here and there about how life used to be in the 50's (fear of nuclear weapons, duck and cover classroom exercies), and a lot of knowledge about the trash business.

The "masterful" epilogue, as other reviewers call it, really does no justice to a reader who has spent so much time toiling over Delillo's ragtag story telling. I am ok with stream of consciousness writing, or nonchronological chapters, or even random chapters, but the methods used in thsi book served no purpose other than to further make the reading difficult.

Was this book about how mundane our lives are versus the bigger things that occur around us? Or how each of us is on an individual quest? Or that the 50's-60's-70's-80's were just years of fear, and the 90's are years of greed? I am still unsure, I still don't think any of these themes came across well.

Please - not pretending to be a sophisticate, intellectual, or professional critic - but this book is really not worth the time or effort. You can be staisfied by a number of other books, including the "The Corrections" by Franzen or "The Cold Six Thousand" by Ellroy  which cover a similar period or similar themes and do not make you so frustrated or disappointed at the end.

Read the first chapter, then put the book down or you will be sorely disappointed and have wasted an awful lot of time.


Bias Was Off-Putting
	Dr. Northrup provides women with practical information about their bodies, stages of life and medical procedures.  However, I was appalled by her bias against Western cultural heritage and Christianity.  Her views on those topics were extremely unbalanced, with no acknowledgement of their positive contributions to culture and women.  As a Catholic whose best teachers were strong-minded, compassionate religious sisters, I felt offended by her slur against nuns.  I am aware that not everyone feels the same way about their religious upbringing, but I would expect an academic to strive for some balance in their research.


disappointing
	The whole concept of this book as well as the honesty of the undertaking: I'm not buying it. The author's effort is half-a**ed at best.
Besides the musings and excessive self-praise, it is downright preachy.
Their effort might pass as non-consumerism for New Yorkers, but would never pass in the rest of America.
Don't buy it


I didn't like it.
	This book is the reason I've read only one John Updike novel. I was so disgusted by the people, the plot, and the very boring and unrelated technical passages that I never read another Updike. I thought the characters were completely unrealistic


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

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

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

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

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


Slightly Disappointed - Review Edited
	I bought the book on the basis of the reviews and on a quick read of a copy a friend owned.  It looks really good on the surface and does have a lot of useful information.

One problem I found is that many of the example photos seem to be inserted only to increase the photo count.  Also, because of printing limitations, I find it very difficult to see the differences between before and after examples.

I have edited this review to fix an error.  However, I can not figure out how to change my rating from 2 stars to 4 stars.  Consider this a 4 star review.


Agree with "Lost in Translation"
	I have loved each and every one of Jane Hamilton's other novels and highly recommend them:  The Book of Ruth, A Map of the World, Short History of a Prince and Disobedience.  This book, sadly, does not rank among them.  It feels forced and uninteresting, with outlandish and unrecognizable characters and scenarios.  I've already paid for it, so I'll probably try to finish it, but don't waste your time or money.  Read another Hamilton instead


not as good as her 1st 2 books
	this book was very disappointing. i LOVED her 1st two books. so when this book came out i was very excited. after reading it, i found it was rather dull and not very funny. there were very few parts that actually made me laugh, unlike her 1st two books


Don't waste your money
	I read exactly half the book and stopped.  Based on all the criticisms of the unlikely ending, that was a good decision.  As it is there went hours of my life I won't get back!  The book is silly and laughable.  The premise sounded great - but the book is bad.  Really bad


Condescending, Redundant, Repetitive
	Robert Kiyosaki's books are all the same thing re-packaged over and over again. This book could have been condensed into a couple of paragraphs and saved it's readers a lot of time. He writes in an arrogant, condescending manner that is hard to stomach. I would hate to have been his real dad. It's obvious that he despises him and worships at the alter of "Rich Dad." It's offensive and disturbing.
Read the first review of this book and you'll have the essence of the whole thing. Don't give this guy any more money for putting out this drivel


Not realistic
	the author lives in a dream world and is not in touch with the business work environment of today.  Her advice is old-fashioned and out-of-date.  Many better textbooks on Ethics available


I love Stone Barrington books - but not this one.
	I had this one figured out by the second chapter. Too predictable and shallow. Hopefully, the next Stone book will actually be worth reading


A disappointing book about a fabulous story
	A disappointing book about a fabulous story.  The book reads as if it was pasted together from press cuttings and, if you look at the chapter notes, this appears to be how it was researched.

There are little irritants, such as referring to Steve Jobs as "Steve" as if he's a close friend, but the big problem is that it recounts a number of interesting incidents in Steve Jobs' career while missing the main story.  And what a fantastic story that is.  I hope that someone has written a decent account of Steve Jobs' life because I would like to read it.

One thing is certain: "iCon" sure ain't it.


Bad second act for Frey.
	Even with the questionable veracity, I enjoyed Frey's first book, A Million Little Pieces, since it stayed true to an addict's experience.  Leonard, on the other hand, came off as pure fantasy, with very little substance.  Even the description of Frey's struggle was too contrived to be believable.  It was not even interesting as fiction.


Hayek--Orwell's Mentor
	At the height of socialist popularism in England, cir. 1944,  George Orwell, a leading proponent of socialism, believing in its promises as did many,if not most of Eurpose's leading intellectuals and politicians, wrote a review of Hayek's famous book, "The Road to Serfdom."  Orwell wrote the review in the "Observer," London April 9,1944.
   Hayek, mentions this fact as a footnote in chapter 17 of his classic book, "The Constitution of Liberty" published in 1960, as evidence of the disillusionment of socialist intellectuals, when they were confronted with the observation that individualism and socialism were mutually exclusive. Those same intellectuals had not accepted the proposition when advanced by Karl Mannheim in his book, "Man and Society in an Age of Reconstrucion" (1940).  Mannheim had been a long opponent of socialism, but Orwell had only been converted after being exposed to "The Road to Serfdom."  By 1960, when Orwell had become a world renowned author and staunch opponent of Big Brother doublespeak, Hayek recognized that the political proponents of socialsm which was dying as a political ideal, were now introducing the concept of the welfare state.
    While virtually everyone alive today have been effected by Orwell's works and his prescient warnings about Big Brother, how many of us are aware of Hayek's infulence on him?
    "The Constitution of Liberty" provides its readers with an enormous wealth of knowledge, of which this one footnote is only a small example.  Each reader is bound to be effected in one way or another by the knowledge imparted to them, and this is one of the main lessons to be learned about "liberty" which requires the "rule of Law" to exist in today's society, but that Rule of Law must be understood.  The failure of today's inteligencia is to fail to fully comprehend the meaning of liberty and its necessity in a world full of confusion from the confrontation of competing civilizations.
    Unfortunately, Hayek is no longer alive to help guide us through the new millenium.  Fortunately, he has left us a large volume of work, perhaps more relevant today than it was when written years ago.  While "The Constitution of Liberty" is voluminous in itself, it should be kept as a reference book.  Hayek's other works, "The Road to Serfdom" and his last published volume, "Fatal Conceit-the Evils of Socialism" published in 1980 is a magnificent continuation of Hayek's life long discertation on the evolution of mankind's growth from a tribal, familial society which did not require man to understand or protect Liberty, to a group of city-states that prospered because of the Liberties protected in Athens, but only moderately understood, so that such a great and wise philosopher as Aristotle would believe that freedom could only exist as far as a man could yell.
  Hayek's understanding that Western Civilization has prospered from individualism, that it has grown and prospered from the freedom to travel, to trade, to exchnge property, material, real and intellectual.  He explains why man must be humble, that humans progress from trial and error, not from conceited belief that one way or another way is correct.  That to be free and liberated is to be free to make mistakes and government should exist to protect individuals'rights to make mistakes while they attempt to profit in their own ideals and beliefs.


Awful
	This has to be one of the most ridiculous books I have ever read. At one point the authors ask: if money equals security, wouldn't you feel safe walking through a major American city at midnight with a suitcase full of cash handcuffed to your wrist? If money really did equal security, you would! I stopped reading after that.

I will say, however, that this book cured me of all of my bad financial habits. I never want to be so bad off as to look to a book like this for advice again.


SURVIVING ON THE RUMORS OF ITS SORDID REPUTATION
	I heard about this book growing up but didn't read it until just recently (a middle-aged adult) and I have to agree with so many other reviewers who feel its popularity largely stems from the time period in which it was written, i.e., it was SO SHOCKING AND DISGUSTING! Such filth! I mean, that's why I heard about the book when I was growing up. But as so many others have already pointed out, it is tame by today's standards. I also have to agree with another reviewer who wrote that the "female protagonist is completely a male fantasy. The book's message is simply that men like women who are able to climax at the same time as their partners without any need for foreplay or other effort on the man's part..." Now, you see, what struck me about Sir Clifford's situation, and Lady Chatterley's, for that matter, is if they really loved each other, his paralysis from the waist down wouldn't have had to put a stop to his supplying her with orgasms; there ARE other things that can be done, yes? In fact, quite possibly Connie would have had an orgasm for the first time! (Ahem, women readers will know what I mean.) But Clifford treated Connie poorly. With or without the lack of sex issue, I think she would have been emotionally open to an affair anyway. Which to me, just goes to show that a man wrote the book...a man totally out of touch with what really makes a woman tick.


oops!
	I bought this book on a friend's recommendation.  If I had been in a book store and could have read a page or two I would have known immediately it was not the type of book I would read.  I'm sure it's wonderful for those who like it.  I passed it on to a friend


This One Let Me Down
	This story was about a young brother trying to make it in life.
I have to admit that I was excited to read this book, and it let me down.  I didn't like how Bobby let Pearl walk all over him.  I don't think Bobby Dallas was portrayed as a "Do Right Man" at all, but rather a wimp.  During the first half of the book, I waited for him to get a back bone, which he never did.  From there on the whole story was slow. I was bored about continually reading about him and his radio job.   This was a slow read for me, I skipped a few chapters just so I could find out what finally happened in the end


Sex belongs in the bedroom NOT in the library!!!!!!!
	This book is filthy.  I had to take a shower after I read it.  Why doesn't he get a job?  Why does he have to live in France? Why doesn't he save his money instead of investing it in alcohol and hookers?  So many questions.  People just think this book deserves a place on the same shelf as say James Michenier because it was banned.  It was banned because it's a bad book


The NYPL should be ashamed of putting this product out
	I bought this off of the New York Public Library website.  What an utter waste of $40.  The book that comes with the software is somewhat helpful, but honestly there is no new information to anyone who has been collecting books for a while.  The worst part is the "software" that you are supposed to use to catalog your books.  First of all, it is difficult to install--this is always a sign of a inferior product: no product that was properly QA'd would be released in such condition.  Second of all, the product is just a fancy version of a spreadsheet.  I could literally use Excel or MS Access to catalog my books just as well as this software.  You actually have to input EVERY piece of data associated with a book.  There is no excuse for anyone with an Internet connection to have to manually input book data.  I state again: it is very surprising that the New York Public Library would include this product in their stores.  It is a major, major rip off and there are far superior cataloging products out there.

The product I finaly ended up using is one called Readerware (http://www.readerware.com/).  Readerware, for the same amount of money ($40), allows you to scan in the barcodes of your books--the software comes with its own CueCat scanner.  Then the software looks up the barcodes you entered, (using the Internet),  and updates each barcode with all the available info on the book. I scanned 800+ books in about 4-5 hours.  BTW, you can also use Readerware to scan in all of your DVDs and CDs, (you have to pay more to get the full version of Readware that supports books, DVDs, and CDs).

Of course, you don't have to take my recommendation to buy "Readerware", but please don't waste your money on "Your Home Library.


Good idea didn't translate into a book
	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


Less than expected...
	I bought this book with big aspirations of another "Joy of Cooking" with a little upscale to it. While I must say the design of the book is fabulous (I am a graphic designer and truly love the cookbook's design), the recipes leave much to pine for. I don't like that most of the ingredients are nothing I normally keep in the house and I am not likely to use often enough to warrant purchasing them. I have yet to actually cook a meal from it for this reason and I have owned the book for over a year. I will stick to "Joy of Cooking" for it is much more of a tool in the kitchen.


I will rate this 1 star and 5 stars-read more...
	Al Gore is making a good road to tell us the facts on Global Warming , but he is missing the fact that in 3-4 years we will have the New Ice Age coming and Billion of people on Earth will die and he is missing 40-60 % of the cause of the Global Warming. The book is good and bad. We can stop this Global Warming in one month. But we cant' do it untill we will expose the real cause of it. Think about: in one month we can stop it. Each month ( in the next 2 years )we will postpone the truth is just bad.
The movie is good and bad.
Is bad in 90% and good in 10%. He put enormous work in it , so many government agencies he is using for this ( mostly) But he is missing the main point.
He will need to change that in the next movie and this is the main point. As a government employee he will never be able to tell the truth. is going to be all the time wixh wash....
We will need to get this work from this stage and do it under an independent ( no government involvement) study.
Adria


The 25 Habits of Highly Successful Salespeople Has a Bad Habi
	This book has a bad habit of being weak and juvenille.  Very weak and ordinary.
G


none of the better WW2 memoirs
	I have read some memoirs of the 2nd WW from a German standpoint and this was not one of the better. Although very fascinating at times it was also oddly detached and some of the stories about his sniping seemed "made up". It sometimes read as a fiction novel where he was alittle too much superman to be belivable.
I also found it very strange that he very seldomly refered to other members in the squad, i do recognise that sniping surely is lonesome work but still, it was like nobody left an impression or if he held back with intent.
Another thing that is getting tiresome is that is always the russians that are the bad guys doing grizzly things, but he didnt stand for a minute to think what his own country had got himself involved in.
Still a good read but these factors didnt allowed me to be gripped by the story as other memoirs have.


The first hundred pages really work, but then...
	The Kite Runner gets off to such a good start, with its blend of history, observations about daily life in Kaboul, and a compelling story of two boys growing up together. The second half goes badly astray, as the novel becomes more and more manipulative and sentimental. By the end of the book, the author is willing to put his characters through all sorts of hell just so he can follow up with a teary reconciliation. I wish an editor had convinced him to tighten it up, stay focused, and resist the urge to tug at the heartstrings with such a heavy hand


Maybe I'm justing getting older
	I have read all of the Artimis Fowl Books and loved them until now

I was disapointed with this one, and not found Artmis unusaly irritating, but felt the whole book was the lacking the charm and wit that had made the other three so good.

Truth be told I was younger when I read the first three, but still I can reread them and enjoy them (as I did after reading the fourth and being very disillusioned with the whole seris) so if you want my advice then I suggst you don't buy this book and let the magic of the first three live in peace


Hate to burst the bubble....
	I purchased this book to gain a better insight about Aspergers.  Instead, it left me with many unanswered questions.  The book is the equivalent to a boring, monotonous `Dear Diary' that gets stuck in one era: His college years and his interest in music.  (This is understandable as the author is terrified of life outside of college,   music is all he knows.)  Yet I craved more details, I wanted to know more about Mr. Shores' childhood, his parents, the stims, and the chaos...DETAILS!

It felt as if the author was trying to prove how intelligent he is, boasting of his accomplishments and how he's almost neurotypical.  His failures were blamed on other people out to get him for unknown reasons.  Lets say it for what it is: A man who looks kind of disheveled and a bit `odd' (Unabomber) gets a job in a financial institution, he rides his bike in, hangs out in the shadows getting dressed, doesn't socialize - and no one wants him around.  It's BECAUSE HE'S WEIRD!  Yet the author blames his co-workers.

I'm sorry but the reality is, the author probably can't see and understand that he IS different because he has Aspergers!   I mean, most typical people can spot someone that is odd/weird/different a mile away.  They avoid them not because they're being hurtful, they just can't relate to that person.

I wished he had focused in much greater detail about his feelings, emotions and behaviors when he was younger-to gain a better understanding of what shaped him into the person he is now.  The book was written as if he fast-forwarded through his entire youth and got stuck on `pause' when he got to college.  While this is obsessively interesting to him, it was tiring reading page after page of redundant accounts of his college days.

There is no depth to the book, it was shallowly written and there is not enough elaboration to make me understand, (or want to for that part) what makes Stephen Shore the person he is.  While this may be due in part to his disorder, it left so much to be desired.

I'm sorry to anyone who takes offense to this review, as this is not my intention.  I applaud Mr. Shores accomplishments and the hurtles he's overcome.  He must be MUCH more dimensional than the book conveys.   I wanted to know more about HIM and not what he's done in his life.

I'd suggest a better read would be one of Temple Grandin's books.  I got a true feeling of who she is and an understanding of how she got there and how autism fits in.  She goes into details about what she was thinking as a girl, teenager and adult.  Her pranks, her temper, the metaphors and their importance..everything.

I bought this book based on reviews, and I felt it necessary to give mine.


An average story...cliche ending.
	The story opens well and hooks the reader.  However, the ending is a disappointment and comes across as cliche and predictable.  I gave it two stars because there was not a category for a 1 and a half


Trite
	The audio is delivered in a monotone that almost puts you to sleep. Not a good thing while drivin


Huge waste of time and money
	If you want to spend 4 times as much money, 8 times as much time, and 12 times as much frustration trying to serve something that your guests will ultimately "politely refuse"--THEN BUY THIS BOOK! The author clearly has NO CLUE that "less is often more.


A landmark in comic history! 5 Stars
	I originally bought this title when it came out as a four-part mini series in 1997 and it is still one of the favorites in my collection.
   Kingdome Come is an Elseworlds (what if) story set approximately ten years after the retirement of Superman and subsequently nearly every other super hero. As the story unfolds, the reason Superman quit is revealed. A rival hero named Magog killed the Joker and was put on trial for murder. When the public cried out for his aquittal and it was granted, Superman quit in disgust. The results of the public choosing a hero that would kill are very apparent in the future.
   The children of the super heroes we know are everywhere. They hold society in a state of terror as they enforce justice and fight each other in the way they see fit, destroying property and causing chaos. Wonder Woman approaches Superman in his self-imposed exile in the nuclear wastleland that is Kansas and asks him to return and lead the former heroes in returning order.
   When Superman returns to the public eye in issue #2, it sets into motion an Apocalypse as described in the Bible, but with Superheroes being the catalyst. The new Justice League rounds up every violent super human and puts them into a prison designed by Mister Miracle(The world's greatest escape artist) called the Gulag. All this is shown from the viewpoint of Norman McCray, a disillusioned pastor and friend of the Golden Age Sandman. He is led on his journey by the Spectre (DC's Angel of Death)
   I absolutely love this story by Mark Waid, the way he wraps comic characters and events into a Biblical epic is brilliant. The painted art by Alex Ross is jaw-dropping in it's realism. The re-imagined characters are god-like in their depiction, especially the Flash- a red blur wrapped in lightning wearing a winged Greek helmet.
   Issue #3 ends in a cliff-hanger with all the villains rioting and breaking out of the Gulag. As Superman races to the scene, he is thrown to the ground by the only person that could, Captain Marvel. I still remember waiting for issue #4 to come out.
   The fight scene between Captain Marvel and Superman was voted #1 all-time by Wizard magazine and is worth the price of this trade alone. Even  without this fight scene, I would rate this as one of the ten greatest mini-series ever, but with it Kingdom Come is #1.
  The only possible negative to this series is that you have to already know something about comics to fully appreciate all the subtleties Waid and Ross weave into this story. Nearly every DC character is pictured at least once.(A geek's paradise I guess) After reading this I actually liked Captain Marvel, who I had always seen as an even cheesier version of Superman. The fear the other heroes have of him and his power level make him hard to laugh at, despite Jerry Ordway's Power of Shazam monthly series to the contrary.
  I hope my description of the story has led any undecided mind to pick this up. Fabulous art and incredible writing. (This should be 5 stars, but I can't seem to edit my rating


Did not like
	I did not like the book.  It did have some interesting points to consider, but it did not seem like discipline to me.  I am more of a Love and Logic fan.  I think kids cannot always see the natural consequences of their own behavior (or don't care) until far into the future and must sometimes have consequences imposed upon them, which this book says not to do.  I just don't agree with it


Myths?  More like Facts to me
	Myth #1: American women live under patriarchy

Myth # 2: America's the World's leading threat to the environment

Myth # 3: America is a racist nation

Myth # 4: The Untied States is an imperial power.

Myth # 5: The rich get richer, the poor get poorer

ALL FACTS.

Plus, The higher the IQ the more liberal someone is. Ben Franklin, Einstein, our founding forefathers like Thomas Jefferson...all liberals. The lower the IQ the more conservative because it is easier to not think for yourself.
I love America, but changes need to be made.
Rome fell too eventually from bad politics


OH PLEASE
	I just finished listening to as much of the book on CD as I could stomach.  The minutia and lack of knowledge of police terminology and tactics was nauseating.  The words forhead, perp, peruse, crim, and finger were repeated over and over and over.  What might have been a good story in half the words was ruined by descriptions of everyone's clothing, spouses, children, and thinking


Buyer beware
	This book is so outdated. All the techniques listed in this book are from the 1980's and earlier, which means that most of the things you can learn from this book are already learned by you from the past. There are much more recent interesting researches and discoveries of human nature you can find in other books


Series writing can be a terrible trap for a writer ...
	and I suspect this is what has happened to James Lee Burke.  The Dave Robicheaux series has been floundering sadly for several books now - and that is tragic, considering the promise of the early books, which peaked in the hauntingly beautiful In The Electric Mist With Confederate Dead.

I grew up in southern Louisiana, and Burke captures a culture that many people have no experience of.  But the series is becoming repetitive and stale, culminating in this book, which is just awful.  Burke's characters, with the exception of the always funny and touching Cletus Purcell, are wearing thin and becoming less and less sympathetic.  Dave Robicheaux becomes more priceless and preachy in each novel.  His anti-alcohol tirades would make any Prohibition era preacher proud.

Burke has fallen into a trap of using the same imagery and phrasing again and again, and it makes the reader wonder if he isn't cutting and pasting entire paragraphs repeatedly.  If I read one more time in a Burke book that Leadbelly strung his twelve stringed guitar in octaves, I will be sick (hey, Mr. Burke?  Twelve stringed guitars have always been strung that way, Leadbelly didn't invent that tuning, okay?)  If I read the word "phallus" in a sex scene in one of Burke's books one more time, I think I will just give up.  The phrases are getting old - really old.  The preaching about political corruption and alcohol got old many books ago.

One thing to be thankful about in this abysmal wreckage of what was once a great series - Bootsie, Dave Robicheaux's wife, is dead, though that doesn't keep her out of the story.  But at least the reader is spared another element that has been repeated to death - the moment in every book with Bootsie in it where she gets up in the night, angry with Dave, and goes to sleep on the couch.  I've had bets with other readers as to what page Bootsie will do this inevitable stunt (which then opens up the opportunity for another sex scene with the "phallus" when they kiss and make up) in each Burke novel where she is a character.  Thankfully, also, Alafair, Dave's adopted daughter, is far away at college, and we are spared her teenaged brattiness which became tedious in the earlier books and yet another repetition of the story of how Dave came to adopt her, which is included in every book since the introduction of the Alafair character.

It's time for Mr. Burke to let the series go.  It's a travesty of its former self.  Reading this book is like visiting a relative who has lost their mind to dementia - you see a hollow, nearly unrecognizable shell of a formerly vital and beloved person.  It's painful


HA HA HA!! I'M NOT NAUSIOUS!
	I am newly preg too. I went out and got this book without reading any reviews. I sum it up this way: a pompous composition of contradiction and condescension. I can't stand the tone and the constant jabs seemingly mocking you and having a GREAT OLD TIME enjoying those pains you will be feeling! IE ..And all those trips to the bathroom to hug the toilet. Ha ha ha...

Last night, I'm reading her stupid book and I get some good advice on what to do with your friends who are smokers. I would just not be near them while they smoke. Period. She says to threaten them with the law that protects non-smokers. Good idea...If that doesn't work, Ask them ALL TO QUIT because YOU are pregnant. And if that doesn't work try being nice. I don't know many smokers but I don't know even one who would smoke in a house or one who would smoke outside and blow the smoke in my face. Another comment that really got me..Take a good look at your slim waistline because won't see it for a LONG TIME! (Implied: OR Ever!) I take pride in keeping myself fit. I am a little freaked about the weight issue. I find that comment insensitive to a point of being twisted. What about the first-timers who are also former eating disorders --like me.
Even the woman on the cover of this book looks like a Stepford Wife.


Painful
	Not very scary, too long, and poor character development.  There are a lot of good reviews about the book.  Maybe I missed something


Women are from vaginas and men are too
	F this self-help industry crap. Quasi-astrological poppycock at its worst. I can tell this book clamps on to the mind and squeezes it to death merely by reading the cliched title. Humans are far more complex than the hack Man-Warrior/Female-Maiden title what's-his-name gives them. And remember, this "doctor," is quietly making mucho mucho bucks off your poor purchase. Your goddamned ancestors never needed a book to run their lives, so why do you? Let's push all the life coaches off cliffs and put the self-help industry to the torch. That's a great start to a sane life


Rich Dad is fake!
	This book shows how Robert has been lying all along. He talks about how he bought his dream car while being homeless. Ok then, how did Robert make the monthly payment? Why would he be stupid enough to sleep in a Porsch as a bum? This guy is such a liar and is trying to con the masses. He is a conman and a good one. Thats why hes a motivational speaker. It takes a good speaker to con you out of your hard earned money. Don't fall for this conman! This book contradicts what Robert has been preaching in previous books. Robert says pay off your debt while he says he bought his dream car while being homeless. That would be odd but it isn't odd because Robert is a professional liar


Not worth the read.
	This was the first book by Danielle Steele that I have read and it will be the last I read by her. I was truly disappointed and believe she is a highly over-rated author. The story was VERY drawn out and I caught myself dozing off a few times because the book was so boring. If you want to fall asleep quick then this is the book for yo


Sappho and sex.... and magic??
	I have very mixed feelings about this book and can't say I enjoyed it all that much. I love the story of Sappho, what little is known of it, and so I picked up this book expecting to see a historical fiction novel cut with realism, research, and certainly the unavoidable necessary lewdness of the celebrity of Lesbos. But monsters? Centaurs? I mean, the story of Sappho's life is not the story of The Odyssey and for the life of me I don't understand why  author Erica Jong decided to give her readers a combination of Greek heroine and Clash of the Titans.

Once I was able to get past the fantasy elements, I realized that I was not being pulled into the story on its own merits. There wasn't enough emotional dimension -- for all her travels, we're shown pretty landscapes and scary oceans but we don't see enough of a real character. I read Sappho's poems in college and the talented mind behind those words is NOT present in this book.

I'm not saying the book is without its good points. Jong has certainly done a lot of research and her enthusiasm is many times contagious. But I found the whole bit a little odd... like picking up a book about Cleopatra and seeing her encounter dragons, unicorns, and the goddess Isis. If Jong had written about Ariadne, this all might have worked. The blend of fantasy just didn't add up to a palatable meal for me


Muddled
	I usually enjoy Ms. Maron's Deborah Knott books very much. The characters are well drawn and give deep insight into Southern life. This one, however, is very flat and the characters are poorly drawn and one dimensional. The first murder doesn't seem to contribut anything to the storyline and is just "there". The second one involving Dwight's son (who is a very poorly developed child character) and his ex wife is not very interesting.

I devoutly hope this was the nadir of the series and it will improve after this. Probably not, though-I foresee several storylines involving husband/stepmother/stepchild conflicts. Glad I checked it out from the library and didn't purchase it outright..do the same and don't waste your money


Red Lily
	The story was slow, predictable and boring. I am still amazed I hung in there and finished reading it.  It's a dud in my opinion


Scrooged!
	The sub-header to this book could very well be: "All Work   no Play makes Jack a Dull Boy".

Basically, Tom Stanley's scholarly treatise on American wealth comes down to this mind-ripping, continent-blasting conclusion:

Millionaires, you see:

1) Save more than they spend;

2) Don't spend anything.

That's it. Page after page, chart after chart, graph after graph, anecdote piling up on anecdote, all of it boiling down to the same conclusion: don't spend more than you save. Clip coupons. Hang on to your wife `til Death you do Part. Buy a rambler for 80 grand, and cling to it like a rat clutching a Big Mac in a hurricane.

To wit: if you're a good little Bob Cratchit, and burrow down in your suburban Dacha, drive the Civic, eat Top Ramen, and take your vacations at the State Museum of Knitting   the Fine Arts, you'll die loaded!Sound like fun?

Didn't think so. Look: you've got one life, and after death all bets are off. Sure, you could be hauled up by the angels to Paradise, or it could just be one plate of linguini too many, a nasty flatline and one vast inky void of non-consciousness. Either way, you're looking at one single trip on this not-so-flat Earth, so you might as well live large.

It's true, now: you can haul in major bank in whatever profession you choose: eremetic horror-writer, Wall Street tycoon, Railroad baron, small-town librarian, legal eagle defender of the Criminally Insane, whatever. And you can always outspend it. That is the source of endless tragedy and Dickensian woe throughout the ages, without a doubt.

But there pitfalls at the other extreme. Listen: I live next door to one of these McMillionaires. The guy is this enfeebled little wizened gnome of a critter, used to be a bank Vice President and got bought out because he was a dingus. Total skinflint. Miser. Goes on his own hunting trips and brings back venison, deer meat, which he forces his family of---jesus, I think 12---to eat for months. Lives in a shacky little rambler, buys used Crown Vics from the local police department and bargain basement prices.

The guy, no doubt, is high net worth. But he's also a loser.

This is a guy who didn't want to cough up a few hundred bucks to help build a joint fence between our properties---so there's a fence, even a fence that abuts his property---but beyond my house and demesne, he elected not to build a fence. Instead, he got a plastic Jersey Barricade (orange and white) and went with that. Is that any way to live? Is that really what it means to be a `millionaire'?

I think not. Half the glory of the Age of Great American Consumption is buying stuff you don't need, but want. Desire. Demand. What else is work for?  Find a way to creative bliss, work at something you're good at, that you have a real passion for, and the money will follow.

But for the Love of God, it's only Money: spend it! What is money for, if not to indulge yourself?

Sure, get a pace---plan to the end---set a budget. But how many of you want to be that newspaper column on page A3, the 95 year old dowager pauper who begged for alms on the streetcorner, ate catfood out of a tin, and scrounged for quarters by the bus stop, then was found rigid and cold in the urine-stiff sheets of her dirty bed, sprawled atop a fortune estimated at 20 million bucks? Sound like a plan? I think not. Money may not buy happiness, but it sure as hell can get you a Rolls-Royce Phantom.

"Millionaire Next Door" might have it right in its sociology---and for what it is, Stanley's thesis is meticulously researched, mustered like a well-trained army, and capable of marshalling its teeming forest of facts like a well-drilled martinet---but it's off the map when it comes down to the point of the whole thing: if you've got it, flaunt it.

"Millionaire Next Door" isn't a bad book: it's scholarly, and plods along its own hand-me-down lodestar towards its prophesied conclusion (be cheap! Die loaded!), and perhaps some folks will be astounded to discover there are some real richies down the block who in another day would have been called skinflints.

But as a map to your stars, this one is a little cramped, cribbed, dank, and stinks of mothballs. I think I'll take first class---scratch that, how much did you say that Learjet was going for, again?

JS


Serious Flaw
	I was expecting a substitute for the classic "Photoshop Channel Chops" by Monroy and friends.  It trivializes the subject with "How to unlock the hidden power of channels ... blah blah.
If you want a better understanding of channels be prepared to wade through a lot of fluff with this one.  Infomercial.


This is the thinnest book on Enron that I read; it covers the whole affair very superficially.
	I don't get the impression from reading the book that the authors have even tried to analyzed the financial holdings that was set up. It is the thinnest book on Enron that I read, for very good reason.


Poor
	The storyline is way over-the-top, the plot is very poor, the red-neck-America-knows-best attitude of the writer is funny and sometimes annoying. Still, I've red worse books. But not many.


If you like books about unicorns, read this
	I'll put my opinion first, so there won't be any doubt in your mind.  I don't believe that you can write useful books about national character.  Is there really such a thing as  quot;national character quot;? People are  just too different, too unpredictable. How well can you predict the  behavior of the people closest to you ?  How well can you predict what  people in your own country will do ?  Would every Italian, if they could  write well, have written the same book as Mr. Barzini ?  I seriously doubt  it.  So what we have in THE ITALIANS is one man's views on the conglomerate  nature of 50 million Italians.  After reading it, I felt even more strongly  that such books, though possibly entertaining, are a waste of time.  An  informative book about unicorns--but do they exist ?   Anthropologists have  been concerned, for many years, in getting the  quot;inside view quot;--the  view of a culture as seen by the person within it.  While Barzini is  indisputable Italian, he tries to visualize Italians as seen by foreign  visitors, then explain to those of us not lucky enough to travel there, why  they are as visitors see them, or why they are not as foreigners may think.   This is not a successful gambit.  Cultures are based on many general  factors--like history, socio-economic patterns, religion, family,  etc.---but the specific results are just that, specific.  Barzini covers  many topics--the importance of spectacle and giving an illusion of  something rather than actually having that quality; the family vs. the  state; Italian modes of achieving success; the north-south split; Sicily  and the Mafia; and last, the tragedy of Italy's long domination by  foreigners.  But nothing really connects.  There are only superficial,  scattered impressions, nothing very concrete to grasp.  The reader is left  with a handful of stereotypes.  Barzini is at his best when describing the  lives and modus operandi of particular characters in Italian history.   These sections were well-written and interesting.  But his portrayal of  Italian  quot;character quot; is fuzzy, contradictory, and ultimately,  unconvincing.  Finally, if you are a lover of lists, you will thrill to  this book, because there is a list on nearly every single page.  Myself, I  got pretty tired of those lists.  If you want to know something useful  about Italy, read another book.  If you just want entertainment, which  might support any stereotypes you have about Italians, then this book could  be for you


Thin characterization
	I agree with one the comments posted below. The main problem with this book is Mitch is a totally one-dimensional character and it's impossible to find any depth in him. Over the course of the book he doesn't change, he's unsympathetic, and by the time we've reached page 500, we don't know anything more about him than we did on page 10. I found myself dying to get to the end of this book, just so I could start another book with some substance and some well-drawn characters.

Another major problem is that most of the characters in this book use the same wise-cracking speaking style so there is no sense of the characters being different from each other in any way.

Overall, I thought this was mediocre and a bit of a waste of time


The guide sucks
	You'd be better off using the internet to figure the game out. The guide feels super cluttered, it's almost hard to read and it doesn't tell you everything at the right time. I think it feels cluttered because there's too many pictures in it. Every page has at least 7 or 8 images on it. The best thing about the guide is the production value but I didn't buy for that


Not for a modern economist
	Book is out of date with modern economic thought.  Essentially restates classical economics and provides little in the way of acceptance of the need for balance between government and the markets.


Not many new ideas or examples
	Really not sure why this book received such good reviews, because it had nothing new.  Expected from the cover some reviews of outfits worn by different individuals pictured.
Very disappointed ... and any (and all) of the "what not to wear" books are so much better.  Oh, Sam, did mention it's better to hand wash cashmere, oh yeah, I already know that.


Unrealistic And Unoriginal
	If you haven't read anything on e-commerce at all, or if you're a total newbie, the latter half of this book may offer some useful advice on how to start an online business. For someone who is already in the business or has already done some research, this book merely repeats a lot of well-known tips. Even then, some of the tips, like in section on affiliate programs, are just theoretical assumptions and projections with very little practical information on how to actually attract sales and traffic.

As for the first part of the book where Allen demonstrates how he could earn $24k in one day, I find it totally unrealistic and it certainly won't happen to anyone reading the book unless he has Robert Allen's background to begin with. Even then, this sort of strategy won't cut it with today's wise and cynical netizens anymore.


Buy a book on probability instead
	This book is built around the idea "I wish it were true = it is true".  While this book has innate appeal to those looking for meaning in their lives, if you're looking for a firm foundation for understanding coincidences in your life (i.e. intellectual integrity), you'd be better off buying an introduction to probability


Disapointing
	Compared to his other superb books, this is one is tedious and boring.  The overall thesis is a stretch - trying to find equivalences between pre-industrial (and pre-printing press) 13th century price paterns and those of the industrialized and post-industrial 20th century requires ignoring far to many factors.  At a minimum comparing a world in which 90% of the population are attached to agricultural production and illiterate to world where almost precicly the reverse holds is just too big a leap to swallow.

Sadly, one suspects more than a little political axe-grinding is involved.

Enjoy Fischer's other books where he excells, but you won't miss much if you neglect to read The Great Wave.  Besides, the subject has been better treated elsewhere by authors not so obviously out of their depth


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


The translation is a problem - the stories are not
	My introduction to Borges was through the collection Labyrinths. I immediately fell in love with the stories, the prose, the poetry, and so went on to buy this complete volume. While it is nice to have all Borges's stories in one place, and at a reasonable price, the language doesn't really hold up for me. The translation is... well, not sloppy, but too simple, like those childrens' versions of classic novels they pressed on you in 5th grade. I have nothing against Andrew Hurley, but his translation of Borges leaves me cold. I'd give Borges 5 stars out of 5, but Hurley? No more than 2.


Has been
	Found recipes dated, layout makes it difficult to use and although some of the how-to is useful, its generally from another era. Bought Gourmet cook book instead


A little too disjointed
	When I bought this book, I didn't realize it was mostly just a consolidated writing of Friedman's collumns in the Times.  I think Friedman is a great author with lots of great insights, but he isn't able to go into his ideas in depth as much as I would have liked in a bunch of detached 750-1000 word segments.  Since the sections are arranged chronologically, there also isn't the opportunity to tie the themes together.

If you really like Friedman, then it's worth a read, but if you are in it for just one, I'd read The Lexus and the Olive Tree first.  It is by far his best


The ugliest chronicle of a true legend of our time.
	The very title for the book - "I Con" - despite its cleverness, should reveal the lack of any objectivity, or class for that matter, from the authors, Jeffrey S. Young   William L. Simon.
I could best describe this book as a shoddy pastiche of ambiguous-sounding facts, poor research, colored by a palpable disdain for [arguably the most interesting legend of our time] Steve Jobs.
What is really distasteful is that this antipathy of the authors towards Steve Jobs, seems 'personal'; which, in a democratic sense, may be alright i guess, [but only] UNTIL facts begin to wear thin, and the research seems doctored, leaving the rants sounding hollow, unsavory and shrill.
And the facts aren't well-strung together either!

From the very opening description in the book, which overdramatizes and harps on about the return of a "reformed" Steve Jobs, to Apple in 1997 (as though the most unfathomably impossible phenomenon in the history of humankind had occurred), to the careful selection of maliciously undertoned quotations, and quite often blatant slanders about Jobs, the book appears to be a collation of 'hate diaries' maintained by two wannabe authors, whose sole purpose in writing this book seems to be to fuel an anti-Steve sentiment among its readers!

If you happen to be one of those people, who finds some twisted pleasure in those idle conversations that involve scandalmongering [especially Steve Jobs], then this book should provide ample fuel for your negative energy


Some intereting facts, but often twisted to suit author's aims
	Like most great diplomatic moments, successes and failures alike, decades will pass before anything approaching a full history of the Camp David debacle can appear.  Even then, disagreements on the apportionment of blame will likely continue on for decades after.  Given the wide interest in the Israeli-Arab conflict and the complex nature of the negotiations, new works exploring the crucial climax at Camp David remain welcome.  Some dismiss Mr. Swisher's work because he was not in fact part of the negotiating team, but instead was responsible at Camp David only for negotiations.  That seems to me unfair.  Clayton Swisher clearly did considerable "leg work" to prepare this text; sadly both his rather obvious bias and almost juvenile desire to settle scores renders what could have been an important work at best suspect.

Mr. Swisher's book follows on the heels of Dennis Ross's interesting "The Missing Peace" and, given Mr. Ross's direct involvement in the negotiations; no one could be blamed for looking at other works as well.  However, Mr. Swisher spends much of his time looking to lay the blame at Mr. Ross's feet, even when he makes claims that others at Camp David, many more central then Mr. Swisher directly contradict his statements.  Much for example is made in this work of Mr. Ross's change of "municipal Jerusalem" to "greater Jerusalem" in a draft as if this caused the breakdown of the agreement.  Unfortunately, Ross's change in fact was a return to an earlier draft after being changed by Robert Malley, a member of the US team and now often a talking head representing the Palestinian point of view, who made the alteration without consulting any of the parties.  Malley has never denied this.  Moreover, days would pass before the negotiations actually broke down.

Swisher's target, perhaps seeking to sell books by putting forward a contradictory point of view, shifts the blame wherever he can to Israel and the US negotiating team.  While such an effort might well be reasonable, Mr. Swisher often twists facts, making excuses for Palestinian gaffs while blowing minor facts out of all proportion.  For example, Mr. Swisher brushes aside the days lost when Mr. Arafat and the Palestinian team insisted that Jews had no historic link to Jerusalem or the Temple Mound -- a position farcical on its face -- as mere posturing.  However, he never mentions that such ideas, undermining the Jewish people very claim to the Land, serve only to inflame the parties and make agreement almost impossible.  Nor does Swisher ever consider the Palestinians failure to negotiate in good faith, treating every Israeli offer simply as a new base line, rather than offering any proposals of their own.  Again, even Robert Malley concedes that this disingenuous strategy by the Palestinians likely doomed Camp David from the start.

Swisher's dismissal of all Israeli concerns reaches a crescendo when he simply casts aside as silly Israel's interest and the Palestinian's refusal of any compromise for the so-called "right of return," or the claim that all Palestinian who left the area of modern Israel and all their descendants must have a right immigrate to Israel, a right held by no other people.  As to the simple fact that this would lead to the destruction of the Jewish State and that the Palestinians are thus expecting Israel to commit national suicide, on this problem Mr. Swisher remains silent.

Lastly, one cannot help but marvel at Mr. Swisher's odd coverage of the events after Camp David.  That Yasser Arafat led a bloody war against Israel rather than offering an alternative proposal for peace is dismissed.  Mr. Swisher combs through events searching for, magnifying, and twisting any event that will make Israel look bad, while at the same time minimizing or even ignoring the waves of suicide terrorists who have murdered hundreds of Israeli civilians in cold blood.  Mr. Swisher even parrots points of Palestinian propaganda so thoroughly disproved that even Palestinian leaders no longer mention them, such as the claim of massacres during Israeli operations in Jenin, which exhaustive study long ago proved to be nothing more than a fabrication.

Curiosity will cause readers to ask why Mr. Swisher takes this extremely biased view.  Fortunately, he lays out his rather simplistic point of view at the very beginning of the book by writing the following, "The primary reason for Arab and Muslim anger against America has been and remains unbridled support for Israel's oppression of the Palestinians."  Again, one can only muse as to why Mr. Swisher does not take Osama bin Laden at his word when he spoke shortly after 9/11 that his hatred manifests from the presence of American Christian soldiers in the heart of Islamic holy lands like Saudi Arabia and later Iraq.  Surely neither the bombings in Madrid or more recently in London had anything to do with Israel, but it seems for Mr. Swisher's simplistic world view, it is at the door step of the Jewish state where all blame is to be laid.


Oh boy, more "lets understand the terrorist" garbage
	The religion of peace is at it again!  In response to the popes words, muslims all over the world respond with violence, destruction, rage, hatred, burning down buildings, burning papal effigies, issuing fatwas against the pope, and even shooting a 70 year old nun in the back.  Wow, such peace from a religion of "peace".  If Islam is a religion of peace, then all the guns in the world are pink flowers, and every nuclear bomb, a soft feathery pillow.  Violence for words.  Destruction for speech.  PLEASE!  This is a religion of war, and bereft mindless 70 year old bags like Noam have begun to lose a lot of mental function with age.  This old bag of a man gives Muslims free passes and blames America.

Question:  When will the world start holding to account the actions of Muslims, and stop blaming others, such as Bush, America, the Pope, or God knows who else? How many more innocent people will die at the hand of Muslims before the western world finally, and for the first time, holds the Muslims accountable for their own actions, rather than someone else?

  Well Im sick of the left defending this vile cesspool of Islamofacism.  Im tired of the leftist media beating up on Israel and coming to the side of middle-eastern tyrants who shoot 70 year old nuns in the back in response to spoken words.  And then these radical leftists have the audacity blame the pope!  Can you believe it?!!  Yes, idiots all over the western world actually blame the pope for the mindless violence and destruction that followed from a spoken word.  Its unreal!  A grown man got a gun, deliberately aimed it at a 70 year old woman's backside, and deliberately pulled the trigger, purposefully killing her in cold blood....and yet according to socialist America-hating leftists, he couldn't help it.  Its not his fault...its the Pope's fault guys!    Respond to words with violence, and then blame the speaker, absolving the person who actually commits the violence of responsibility.  As absurd as that sounds, I'm sad to say there are actually people all over the world who think that.  And they are idiots (like Noam)


What's the point?
	Very little plot, which is boring.
The reader should be paid by the page, if not by the word, to read this book!


This book isn't for everyone
	I bought this book this weekend as we're doing the pre-five in a Row w/our preschooler and I don't much like it. I've got a mother w/borderline personality disorder and who doesn't observe personal boundaries of other's what-so-ever (if I need a break away, she hunts down my poor husband, all my relatives and friends- ugh) and so this book just kind of made my stomach turn as I could see her reading this to me and justifying her 'stalker mom' mentality.

In the end, I think if a person is from a semi-normal household w/proper respect for a child's boundaries and need for space away from their parents, then this book is okay. I just find some moms are too smoothering- even ones w/o personality disorders- and this book doesn't send a message about love as much as 'I own you'. I like 'Mama Do You Love Me?' better for explaining to a child a parent's unconditional love.

'Good-Night Moon' by Margaret Wise Brown, however, is by far my children's all time favorite book. I was reading that one to them ineutero and still every night before they go to bed. They love it and so do we as parents. But this one even creeped my hubby out and he's from a fairly 'normal' family.
Take it w/a grain of salt


A book full of gaps
	Aside from the 1958 Championship Game and the 1968 Super Bowl, the actual football games got very short shrift. The 1964 Championship Game didn't even get a MENTION! Whole years are virtually ignored. Very, very little discussion of Unitas' career and his impact on the game: mostly just anecdotes about family, friends, and teammates, and way too much space devoted to post-mortem comments from same. I think I learned way more about Johnny Sample and Gino Marchetti and Jim Parker from this book than I learned about Unitas. And that's not saying much. There's a lot of padding in this book but precious little information. And a lot of the anecdotes will be familiar if you're a football fan. Wait for the paperback if you're a Unitas devotee; otherwise don't bother.


Boring and Poorly Written
	This is the first book by Shaara I have read. And, if his other works are like this, it is also the last.

On the cover, J. Persico is quoted as saying Shaara makes "literature read like history and history read like literature."  He goes on to claim that Shaara brings the war to "pulsating life."  I have even read a review that claimed this book was better than Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front.

I must have been reading a different book.  The first chapter, The Replacement, is a great short story.  After reading it, I had hight expectations for the book.  Unfortunately, it falls apart after that great beginning and it is a dull affair that completely lacks any sense of a coherent narrative from a literary point of view.  And, the history reads like an 8th grade textbook.

His narrative style is unable to give life to people that actually lived.  They are flatly presented and there is no sense of really caring about what happens to them.

After the dislocated short story of the first chapter, the book delves into a long-winded story of the flying aces, interspersed with summaries of historic events that do little more than ruin the flow of the story.  It frequently feels like the book is written for people who are unwilling to read a real history book.

Shaara doesn't even begin dealing with the trench warfare of the war until the 1918's, when the Americans arrive, focusing, as I noted before, primarily on the air war that occurred in the first years of the war. I should point out that the air war would be interesting reading in a book of its own.  Here, however, it seems more to reflect that the author did not deem the ground warfare fought by non-Americans worthy of a story. Or was too lazy to research the events enough to write about the ground war from the British or French perspective.

And, I have no particularly problem with him focusing on the American perspective on the war, but then why bother with writing anything prior to our entry?  I suppose a smaller book doesn't sell as well.

For those interested in historical fiction, I would recommend Bernard Cornwall's work.  And, perhaps, Shaara can learn a bit from him


Great for philosophy, but doesn't inspire!
	This book is an nice collection of differing points of views about latinos/hispanics. However it's primarily philisophical. It's more confusing than inspiring. It's great for those studying for a phD, but will not inspire average latinos to action. This book tilts slightly more towards the assimilationist point of view, although a few writers do express some pan-latino thoughts.


Too popular to bother trying anymore.
	J.K. Rowling successfully put me off this book series within the first two chapters of this book.  The characters personalities were wavering in book 5, in this they completely vanished or mutated.  I'll only be getting the 7th one because it's the last one and I've read this far so I might as well go the whole way.

In books one through four the trio of Harry, Ron, and Hermione were loveable characters tenaciously and cleverly seeking out the answers to the mysteries that came up each year and saving the day.  Book 5 had them doing more angsting and screaming than mystery solving, and more whining than day saving. Book 6 made them stand in paper doll doing a bad job miming the motions the real characters would have done.

This book Harry seemed to care more about romance.  A very poorly done romance littered with cheezy phrases and romantic moments on par with the worst of bad fanfiction; which had no background or build up from previous books.  A female character from the background, whom Harry barely even notices all through the past five books, is suddenly the most perfect and beautiful girl in the school in mary-sue fashion.  Several other characters in both the foreground and background were also unfortunately treated to Rowlings amature attempts at romance, none of which bore any revelance to plot or story.

Harry also had a significant decline in morality and intelligence.  The clever boy who put clues together with his friends now cheats in one of his classes and makes one stupid mistake after another.  The image of Harry that stuck with me and seemed to glare off the pages every time he spoke or did anything was of him lying, frozen in a curled position on the floor of the train with blood coming out of his broken nose, under his invisibility cloak and rolling around with the trains motion after a particularly stupid episode with Malfoy.

As to the general plot of the book.  Poorly done.  Continually backstaged by sickeningly done romance and angst it barely made an impression on me.  Most of the 'revealations' in the book revealed nothing not already known or obvious from old information, and the culmination of what Harry was not-quite-solving didn't amount to anything.

My final opinion: Don't bother to read past book 4 if you're just starting the series and care anything at all about characterization.  A very disappointing book


Worthless and Disproven
	Keynes was no doubt an influential economist.  His theories and 'expertise' on economics influenced the post-New Deal economic policies of the United States and the internationalist wealth redistribution schemes like IMF.  However, his ideas on economics failed miserably and it was application of Keynesian ideas that wrecked so much havoc on the U.S. particularly in the 1970s with the stagflation (an inflationary recession with unemployment which was theoretically impossible accordingly to Keynesism.)  We have Keynes to thank for budget deficits and the nebulous idea that we can spend ourselves into prosperity through the largesse of the federal government.  Read Planning for Freedom or Socialism by Ludwig von Mises instead


Nothing special here
	I read this short novel because I greatly admired Shaara's Pulitzer Prize winning "Killer Angels," and because I'm a baseball fan.  The novel feels more like an outline or first draft than a completed work about an aging pitcher.  It's a bit shallow and predictable in its plot.  The characters are what one expects in all too many sports novels and short stories.  The feel or atmosphere just isn't quite there.

Any baseball fan will see flaws in the book right away, flaws that distract and damage the work.  Shaara sets most of the novel in Yankee Stadium with the Hawks playing the Yankees.  Why the author chose to have one real team against a fictional team is unclear.  The Hawks apparently are from Atlanta, but an Atlanta team, Braves or Hawks, whichever, would not be playing the Yankees interleague on the next to last day of the season.  Finally, when a visiting pitcher goes out to warm up before the game, he does so in the semi-hidden bull pen down the left field line in Yankee Stadium--not on the mound on the field.

This book was published posthumously and Mr. Shaara perhaps never had a chance to polish his prose--prose that was excellent in "Killer Angels."  It's unfortunate.

There are glimmers of interest in the book, but not enough to recommend it to baseball fans or fans of the author's other book


Why is waiting for Godot like waiting for a bus?
	Because you wait and wait, and then three don't turn up at once


Over rated
	This book is not as good as i thought it would be.  I hope i have better readings with Bryan Tracy's Advance selling


Nothing New
	Wright presents no new information about Al-Qaeda, leaves out plenty of information about Al-Qaeda and neglects the USA side of "the road to 9/11."  Understanding Qutb's radicalization of Islam is important to understanding why Ayman al-Zawahiri and Usama exist and also why they failed at creating theocracies and were lame ducks until the USA found a use for them as an enemy.  What cannot be neglected is the myths spread about the United States by the Neoconservatives and followers of Leo Strauss.  The United States is not a unique and beautiful snowflake.  The liberal idea of individual freedom was decried by Strauss as destructive of the society of the USA and he told his followers to keep the public in line with grand myths about US exceptionalism.  After the the Soviet Union was kicked out of Afghanistan, both Qutb and Strauss' followers believed they were the cause of it.  Since the Cold War the US has been working off of the "friend and enemy" model of policy formulated by Carl Schmitt and 9/11 presented the US with what Schmitt called a "state of exemption."  If you think jihad was the cause of 9/11, ask yourself why Richard Clarke found Bush and his advisors saying find a way to tie this to Iraq hours after 9/11.  See the BBC documentary, "The Power of Nightmares" or "From Secularism to Jihad: Sayyid Qutb and the Foundations of Radical Islamism" by Adnan A. Musallam or the Political Ideas of Leo Strauss by Shadia Drury for a better analysis of Qutb and Strauss than Wright has in his book.  If you prefer to stick with fiction about "the road to 9/11," check out Patrick S. Johnston's novel "Mission Accomplished.


Recycling Personified
	If you've read one Gary Null book, you've read them all.  He is no doubt highly knowledgeable and dedicated to his subject, but when I buy two books with different titles by Gary Null and find they are the same, I'm pretty annoyed.  His early books were taken directly from Herbert Sheldon's Natural Hygience material, which I assume must not have been copyrighted, and I felt ripped off then, in the 70's as I did recently when Amazon was good enough to give me a refund for one of the books.


Partisan Politics Provide Poor Analysis
	Unfortunately, instead of an thorough analysis of the genesis, justifications, and problems with overarching property rights, DeLong acts as a mouthpiece for other property rights activists.  DeLong covers some of the same ground as Congressman Richard Pombo in his 1996 This Land Is Our Land, simply emphasizing anomalous examples instead of practicable solutions.  DeLong's denial of the externalities resulting from uninhibited development leave his analysis unbalanced and ill-founded.  DeLong's politics overcome his analysis.  This book is similar to his condemnation of industry for their recognition to the denial of carbon dioxide emissions.  (...)  His political agenda overwhelm his rational


it is ok
	this was certainly not one of Cornwell's best works.  IT was almost like a couple of possible novels rolled into one.  It read like a draft for a novel rather tahn a complete novel


Reluctantly dragged along with Frances Mayes
	This book really irritated me. I loved Mayes's previous books and was really looking forward to reading this one. The concept, a year of traveling to different locations, seemed like it would be really interesting combined with Mayes' fresh perspectives, enthusiasm for discovery, feisty opinions and poetic descriptions. But somehow it didn't work.

I get the sense that her heart wasn't really in this book. Maybe because the trips were taken over a span of five years, and cobbled together? Or because there's so much `padding' - endless quotes from her own or other people's writing. When she liked the place, her descriptions feel artificially enthusiastic, almost as if the book was paid for by the chamber of commerce. I got tired of reading that she could live there, or could imagine taking her grandson there, or wishes she was born there, or that it's SO much better than San Francisco. Where she doesn't live anymore, and hasn't for years. There are also too many stories about refreshing local characters who think Frances Mayes is the nicest, most tasteful, most interesting person they've ever met. Especially since these people tend to be waiters, cab drivers, rug salesmen or others whose business depends on charming the tourists.

Most of the book consists of sneering at her fellow Americans, or talking about people's personal appearance. This is boring and clich�d - and if you like that kind of thing, Bill Bryson does it better. There's also way too much name dropping (she's always mentioning "my friend so-and-so, the famous ____"). What happened to the ordinary, financially stretched, middle-aged college professor? She seems to be taking on the persona of a celebrity. She doesn't want to be crowded in with a group, doesn't want to associate with ordinary tourist types - now she deserves the VIP treatment. This is definitely a change from her previous books.

I think when it comes right down to it, there's too much Frances Mayes in this book. I thought I liked her, but what I really like is her writing style. It can still be magical - when she gets her ego out of the way. But when she puts herself front and center, she becomes more tedious and pretentious than interesting. Now I'm sorry I read this book, because I'm afraid it will spoil my enjoyment of the earlier ones.


Could win any poor writing award
	The work of a 12 year-old without talent. Phrases are tediously cobbled with clumsy, inappropriate similies. Story line is absurd. If this were Koontz's first novel, no publisher would touch it


Hate parade mixed with racism.
	Hateful liberals once again undermine their so-called ideology by promoting the hatred of over half the US population. They claim to be tolerant and open-minded toward all lifestyles,religions, races etc... but that open-mindedness obviously shouldn't apply to people who disagree with them. Throughout the "book," Moore also demonstrates his racism towards caucasians and thin people. If you like this book, I also recommend Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler. Both "books" are jam-packed full of hate.


bad, bad, bad
	Who published these weak translations?  Yup, they are on newsprint and get smudged immediately.  How about using real paper?  B N needs to stop thinking opportunistically and start thinking about quality


PLEASE...don't waste your time
	I bought this book because of the 4 star rating by readers.  Let me be candid....what the hell were they reading?  This book is simply insipid, implausible and a waste of time.  Get this for a premise....rich, geeky guy buys a major league baseball team called the "Connecticut Nutmegs"!  Nutmegs for a major league team??!!  Yeah, right.  It gets better....he has an incredibly sexy girl friend who stars in the C-list movies he produces....ok hold on to your seats, here comes the good part....she is going to be his star player on this MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL team!!  Why, because in college she was an excellent athlete.  So some buxom starlet who ran track in college is going to play major league baseball!!  Am I the only one who thinks this is plain stupid.  Oh, yeah there's a murder along the way.  Parker (author) must have pictures of the publisher having sex with a goat otherwise I can't think of a reason why it got published.


I Couldn't  Wake Up
	Having read "The Millionaire Next Door," as well as most if not all of the classics in this category, I expected life-altering experiences with this book.

There were too many statistics, and statistics that contradicted one another, not to mention generalizations about various subgroups that, try as I did, I had to put my copy down and use it at first for a door stop, then because the cover art is great, I decided leaving it on the coffee table makes a great conversation piece.


A doctrinaire view of biology
	Most books that set out to explain why organisms behave as they do describe observations of behaviour on almost every page. The books of Richard Dawkins, whom Rose selects as his special target, illustrate this well: readers can reject all of his interpretations while remaining fascinated by the purely factual information that they contain. How one can hope to convince anyone of the truth of a theory without supporting it with abundant facts? Yet hard biological information is extremely sparse in Rose's book. There is a great deal about what he thinks of other biologists' opinions, but almost no observations from behavioural biology. Nonetheless, in his preface he aligns himself with the practising biologists "who spend a significant part of every working day thinking about and designing experiments", dismissing Dawkins and Daniel Dennett as "people who either no longer do science or never did it." What a pity, therefore, that he chose to include so little of the experimental basis of his ideas in his book. There are a few vague remarks about how chicks behave, and that's about it.


Not quite what I expected...
	The first twenty pages of the book quickly sparks your interest but soon after that, the story drags until it picks back up again toward the last third of the book.  I think the story would have been more credible if Barr would have thoroughly explored the inner workings of her fictional religious sect and offered more details about it.  Without those details, the book seemed "unfinished".  It was like watching a movie and only viewing the actions of the good guy without being exposed to villain.  Boring in my opinion.


If you like books about unicorns, read this
	I'll put my opinion first, so there won't be any doubt in your mind.  I don't believe that you can write useful books about national character.  Is there really such a thing as  quot;national character quot;? People are  just too different, too unpredictable. How well can you predict the  behavior of the people closest to you ?  How well can you predict what  people in your own country will do ?  Would every Italian, if they could  write well, have written the same book as Mr. Barzini ?  I seriously doubt  it.  So what we have in THE ITALIANS is one man's views on the conglomerate  nature of 50 million Italians.  After reading it, I felt even more strongly  that such books, though possibly entertaining, are a waste of time.  An  informative book about unicorns--but do they exist ?   Anthropologists have  been concerned, for many years, in getting the  quot;inside view quot;--the  view of a culture as seen by the person within it.  While Barzini is  indisputable Italian, he tries to visualize Italians as seen by foreign  visitors, then explain to those of us not lucky enough to travel there, why  they are as visitors see them, or why they are not as foreigners may think.   This is not a successful gambit.  Cultures are based on many general  factors--like history, socio-economic patterns, religion, family,  etc.---but the specific results are just that, specific.  Barzini covers  many topics--the importance of spectacle and giving an illusion of  something rather than actually having that quality; the family vs. the  state; Italian modes of achieving success; the north-south split; Sicily  and the Mafia; and last, the tragedy of Italy's long domination by  foreigners.  But nothing really connects.  There are only superficial,  scattered impressions, nothing very concrete to grasp.  The reader is left  with a handful of stereotypes.  Barzini is at his best when describing the  lives and modus operandi of particular characters in Italian history.   These sections were well-written and interesting.  But his portrayal of  Italian  quot;character quot; is fuzzy, contradictory, and ultimately,  unconvincing.  Finally, if you are a lover of lists, you will thrill to  this book, because there is a list on nearly every single page.  Myself, I  got pretty tired of those lists.  If you want to know something useful  about Italy, read another book.  If you just want entertainment, which  might support any stereotypes you have about Italians, then this book could  be for you


Good, but has a few errors
	It has the potential to be a great book if the author had taken some time to actually look into each breed. The "Canadian Eskimo Dog" is now referred to as the Canadian Inuit Dog out of respect for the Inuit people. He has the dog's height wrong, and the weight range is much too high. This leads me to conclude that if there were that many errors on one dog breed, who's to say that it's not wrong on other breeds too?
I was quite disgusted and mad to see the "designer dogs" put as purebred dogs. Labradoodles, Bichon/Yorkies, Cockerpoos, and Bull Boxers are NOT purebred dogs. They are mixes given a fancy name and sold for staggering amounts of money.
The first few chapters on the history of the dog is quite fascinating though, and the pictures are nice. If you need an all-in-one book and don't mind many errors, this is a great book for you. If you're like me, go down the road of buying a better dog encyclopedia and different books on different subjects rather than this faulty all-in-one


Expert Obedience Training for Dogs
	Two main comments.  Firstly, the book is mistitled or I misread the meaning of the title and I would be delighted to return it.  This is a book devoted primarily on how to make your dog perform "tricks" with much on showmanship.  I have no interest in that but I do have an acute interest in dog obedience relative to the master's care of their puppy and mature dog.  Problems handlers encounter in "greeting" of your dog with other dogs and people.

Secondly, the book, as written, talks down to the reader and unless you have had some professional experience with dogs, you feel very unqualified to read on.  I felt intimidated by it.


A bone to pick with 'Skeleton Man'!
	I've read only a few of Hillerman's previous Leaphorn/Chee novels. I've enjoyed what I've rtead, though they are an acquired taste, and I don't indulge in them very often. I tend to enjoy the earlier, more active years of Joe Leaphorn more interesting than his ' semi-retired unofficial advisor to Jim Chee' phase.

From what I gather, 'Skeleton Man' continues a recent trend of disappointment with Hillerman's last few novels. Even without having read the books immediately prior to this one, I can understand that sentiment.
'Skeleton Man' starts off with a rather risky premise, tying the story in with the real life collision over the Grand Canyon in 1956. While an author can occasionally pull off a good story with a strong connection to 'real life'(See Nelson De Mille's 'Night Fall'), Hillerman fails here.
The story is bogged down with bland and unlikable supporting characters, flimsy motivation, and very little that could really be called 'action'.
Chee ends up joining Leaphorn in the background for much of the story.
The spiritual and ritualistic aspects of Hillerman's earlier books are, for the most part, glossed over here. Even what should have been a major plot development (Chee's wedding) is overshadowed by Chee have to rescue Manuelito, in the manner of far too many contrived 'Superman rescues Lois' situations.
Better to stick with Hillerman's earlier novels. The 'aging athlete past his prime' analogy suits Hillerman, I'm afraid


For the plain and simple
	This book is 'oragnized' into sections - Getting Started, Organizing Room by Room, Organizing Finances, Organizing Time, Organizing Home Life, and Organizing Transitions.

Who needs an entire section telling you the benefits of being organized - isn't that why I bought the book?  The author takes 'plain and simple' to new heights...for example - "To organize your refrigerator, start by uncluttering it."

I was hoping for something with more substance.  There was nothing in this book that I didn't already know.  If you're looking for something very basic as far as what to do in your home...you will like this book


Not what I expected
	I like looking at old pictures and old letters, but I thought when I bought the book that I would actually be looking in the history of someone's life with pictures to go with it but that was not the case.  It is just a random bunch of pictures and a random bunch of letters put together in a book.  The pictures aren't necessarily the pictures of the people who wrote the letters, so you know nothing of the authors, no explanation of the times they lived in or the place they lived in or anything.  In other words, no story behind it whatsoever.  Just a disappointing collection


'It is obvious that heavier-than-air flight is impossible.'
	I will be brief: Penroses writing is mediocre, his drawings obfuscate more than clarify.
The vast majority of the book is devoted to completely and utterly extraneous topics, and seems to largely be a platform for Penroses new quantum theories.
His arguments are unclear, weak and largely dependent on philosphers like Lucas and Searle, while his idea of quantum effects is improbable and surely in the end irrelevant (cannot computers tap into quantum effects?) and his knowledge of computer science deeply, deeply suspect.
For example, I quote here from the final sections which actually have something to do with his ostensible reason for writing the book:
"Neverthless, one still might imagine some kind of natural selection process being effective for producing approximately valid algorithms. Personally, I find this very hard to believe, however."
The entire flourishing, commercially succesful field of evolutionary computing begs to differ here, Mr. Penrose. SUch bonehead errors compells me to point out that this mathematician has no clothes


dreadful
	Perhaps this book appeared to be a futuristic medical thriller when it first came out, but now it seems like a bad 1950s horror movie.  The story involves brain surgery gone bad, with a mix of artificial intelligence and mind control.  The end of the story was very predictable and played out exactly as I suspected from the very beginning of the book.


P L E A S E . . . buy something else
	Many reviewers on this site read TLGPE in the 70's, when we were young and impressionable. (I happened to be 13 when I read it.) If one could be sued for intellectual forgery, Lindsey would certainly be found at fault.

Most of us, thankfully, have gotten past our fears that plagued our teenage years. After all, when we read TLGPE, we were young. We were searching and seeking. We didn't have all of the facts. There were wolves who knew this, and they preyed upon us. Many people who were older, yet still intellectually undeveloped, read this book and were moved to 'believing'.

For most of us, our minds matured. We began to see the vast chinks in Lindsey's pompous Christian armor. We began to realize that fear is a weapon brandished by madmen, by people who use a subtle, gentle cloth of manipulation to control others.

This is beyond dangerous. It is beyond extreme, as most of us have now found out.

I love a good horror novel. I love a good 'true crime' thriller. But the fact that people read Lindsey's books and take them at face value is, perhaps, one of the scariest notions I have ever imagined.

That, dear reader, is beyond horrific . . . and far more terrifying than anything you'll find in the bible or any of Lindeys 'books'. The only thing scarier is that Mr. Lindsey is still receiving royalties from an outdated, silly, contradictory and completely barbaric book penned over thirty years ago. Please don't be the next sucker. Please don't add this one to your cart.


The Language of Threads: A Novel
	This was a less than stellar sequal to The Women of the Silk but it did finish the story of Pei to some extent.  I found the historical aspect of the novel the most interesting and the story of the women the least believabl


Red Lily
	The story was slow, predictable and boring. I am still amazed I hung in there and finished reading it.  It's a dud in my opinion


Same Old Same Old
	The title grabbed me because I have been noticing for, oh about 14 years now, the decline of the truth in this country.  Unfortunately, this book is written precisely by the kind of person who has lost touch with reality and what truth is (definition of irony I believe).

The reason it is #1 on the bestseller list is because there is a ready audience out there, of similarly detached people, who want anything (and I mean anything - a website with a good conspiracy story and a glass of warm milk before bed everynight is their ideal) that backs up their point of view.

It is precisely why the truth is so out of fashion.  New media streams like the internet, blogs, etc. offer up "news" without accountability.  They allow this segment of society to avoid confronting the truth and instead construct their own alternative realities.  It makes people like Frank Rich, rich, with very little effort.  Why bother checking facts, his core readership doesn't care whether it is true or not, just tell them Bush is evil


A new "Worst" book in my libray
	Who better to write a book about morons than Flynn?  An abyssmally miserable book with so little substance I was surprised it didn't float out of my hands.  It's a great resource for those looking for a plethora of examples of pitifully poor logic; Two wrongs don't make a right, non-sequiturs galore, red herrings - they're all there.

It seems apparent the goal was to scoop up the easy money from the thin thinkers in our world.  It certainly wasn't to write a scholarly treatise where the reader came away enlightened in the slightest way.

I guess I have fallen into the category of "moron" by spending money on it and worse yet, reading it to completion.  I'm embarrassed.  Flynn should be too


Not all great quotes...
	I wanted to like this book.  It's a great size for carrying around to dip into.  However, I'd say about a third, or maybe more, I haven't counted, are anonymous. Here's an example: "Life is filled with possibilities" p31.  Now I don't know about you, but I'd hardly class that as great stuff from great minds. Then I read "Decide what is worthwhile and follow through with it" and I'm beginning to yawn. When I came to "Above all, life should be fun" and "Always keep a window open in your mind for new ideas" and I'm just about ready to throw the book into the garbage.  Also, the format of the book is terrible.  Someone decided to put every quote into a little frame, so you get four quotes on a page.

Still, for the price, it's not that bad.  No, on second thoughts it's pretty dire.  There's just too many pathetic jingles in here for me, which only motivate me to demand a refund!  If I were you, I'd save my money and put it towards something else - "The Book of Positive Quotations" has 7000 quotes and I wouldn't be without my copy


The first hundred pages really work, but then...
	The Kite Runner gets off to such a good start, with its blend of history, observations about daily life in Kaboul, and a compelling story of two boys growing up together. The second half goes badly astray, as the novel becomes more and more manipulative and sentimental. By the end of the book, the author is willing to put his characters through all sorts of hell just so he can follow up with a teary reconciliation. I wish an editor had convinced him to tighten it up, stay focused, and resist the urge to tug at the heartstrings with such a heavy hand


Doesnt look like Grisham at his best
	I remember reading "The Chamber" distinctly. Somehow, this book doesnt even near that standard. The story line is vague with unnecessary twists and turns. The characters have been strongly depicted but none of them turns out to be standing out


Skip it...content of zero value...
	...Uldrich makes big bucks on the public speaking circuit discussing nanotechnology...I suspect this book was published for no other reason than to provide some "credentials" to support the speaking engagements...his most recent books published since this one have been one about George Marshall and another about Lewis and Clark -- real cutting edge technology there!...nope, don't buy it


A poor imitation.
	The ghost writer was probably afraid to put his own name on the book.  It was totally predictable without any of the depth found in real Ludlum books


Silly,Silly,Silly
	I have been a devoted Hiaasen fan from the beginning and awaited all his novels which are few and far between with much excited anticipation.  Although his writing remains flawless and some of his lines are hysterical, the story is just so silly I found it hard to keep my attention focused.  I compare reading this book with watching a sponge bob cartoon which I do with my children on occasion.  Sorry, I just couldn't finish it