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I think its not wise to refer to only one source here is one of the testmonies:
"I was born in Israel (Palestine then) to a well-known Jewish religious family. We are living in Israel for many generations; well before the Zionists infiltrated the Middle East. Jews and Moslems always lived in peace in Palestine until the Zionists came from Europe, massacred the Palestinians (Dir Yassin, etc.) and forced them to run away from their lands and get locked into the refugee camps across the borders for almost three generations.
Studying in a Jewish religious school in Tel Aviv, I was taught that the 'bad Arabs' conducted pogroms all over Palestine killing Jews. My family told me the opposite: we lived in Palestine in peace for generations with our Moslem brothers. When the Zionists started their pogroms (Dir Yassin), the Moslem acted in revenge and started their own pogroms, killing Jews. However, our Moslem friends actually saved the lives of our family by hiding us in their own houses at a risk to their own lives. "
http://www.rense.com/general54/thank.htm
you can make your search with many of the Anti-Zionism Jewish organization all over the world.
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This is my first Ludlum book and it is sure to be my last. The plot is preposterous because of Ludlum's limited understanding of economics and history. Once you realize that, all interest in the story falls away. It starts off plausible enough...and the blurbs on the jacket imply some "weapon" more powerful than a mere 270 million dollars! Hitler gained power because of the alignment of a number of situations that made the ground fertile for his brand of megalomania. Some spoiled, rich American brat and his fortune would hardly make a difference to the currents of history. I know that this is only supposed to be a work of fiction, and it is all in good fun, but the plot-concept needs to be much more believable to hold my interest. If you don't need logic in your fiction, it's interesting enough as a cloak and dagger story, but it falls far short in the historical (and economic) fiction department
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Homesick: My Own Story by Jean Fritz is a story about an American girl who grows up in China. She spends a good part of her life wishing she could be in America, where she belongs. WHen she's not doing that, she's
corresponding with her grandmother,
trying to make friends with some young chinese children,
and learning british culture in school.
As you can see, Jean Fritz would be an excellent storywriter had she made it up. However, this story is an autobiography, and is in almost no way fictional. Jean Fritz is an excellent storywriter anyway, though. Jean Fritz describes the setting as if her pen were a plane ticket. Her story line makes it difficult to locate the plot, or even understand the full story. The autobiography is punctuated by emotions. All in all, this is a fine educational history text, but is not, in my opinion, a fitting storybook
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This book was a huge disappointment. Sue Grafton and Kinsey meander all over California but come up with nothing of substance. The author spent more time describing the decor of a hospital room than explaining the murder motive. The characters and their actions are bogus and contrived. For example, Kinsey becomes emotionally attached to a young prostitute she met two days before. It doesn't work because it isn't real. It is Sue Grafton bending her characters into grotesque positions as she tries to force a plot into this dull mess. The story makes little sense as we try to follow the seemingly interminable clues and innumerable side characters. When it was all over, I still didn't know why the murders had been committed.
Save your eyesight! Do not bother picking up this book
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Was given this book as a freebie--someone must be buying up copies. For an Austinite, this adoring account of the life of a hasbeen fifth-string techno-celebrity is a little embarrassing in its breathlessness--kind of reminds one of the courtiers who saluted when Louis the XIV's chamber pot was carried by, except this isn't the Sun King, guys. Get a life, or at least an authentic artist to swoon over--all of Garriott's stuff was strictly derivative. Now that we have the real Lord of the Rings to watch, who cares about cheap imitations
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I'll start with the positive: The main character is a classic hero in every sense of the word - tall, good-looking, smart, humble, etc. The story was engaging and made for a quick read because it was easy to follow, carried the reader along and crafted as to have no wasted words. In short, it was a competent work of fiction.
That's where my praise ends, because this is the type of work that contributes to our national problems by feeding false stereotypes and radical agendas. Sure, it's a work of fiction, no one is going to take it seriously, yada yada yada. But that's not true, is it? So many people in this country believe that this the plot of this book is plausible and even to be encouraged - - just look at the reviews to find the believers.
Alright, here are my problems with it:
First, politicians are corrupt and will sell-out anyone to maintain power, but that's not true if you're a conservative farm-boy elected despite your honesty from a midwestern state. In Term Limits, Vince Flynn just beats you over the head with the "power corrupts" mantra - he doesn't show it in the actions so much as just repeats it like the chorus of a bad rap song, yet from the lips of the Marine Combat Veteran Congressman who is our protagonist. You know what, though? There are people in politics on BOTH SIDES OF THE AISLE who really want to do what's right, who really are trying to make a difference for the positive, for this nation and the citizens. In this book, however, the public is a tool to be used and treated as if they aren't smart enough to make good decisions.
Second, murder is a viable answer. This repeats another mantra that conservatives repeat often - that they do the hard fighting and living to protect this nation and its freedoms so that the liberals can live in their fantasy-land. Come on, get real. This book touts a Special Forces Unit as being so committed to the Constitution that they are willing to murder high-level politicians and threaten the president with assassination if he doesn't balance the budget. And, they get away with it because it's really the right side to be on. Murdering our leaders is the answer according to Vince Flynn. Murder solves the obvious weakness that we have as a nation, that being elections. Elections apparently just get in the way.
Third, the balanced budget. For years and years - until the time this book was written - conservatives cried about the budget. The book makes it the central theme. Balance the budget and make us fiscally responsible. It's important enough for a military coup supported by the protagonist of this novel. A Coup!!! Yet, when the conservatives did take power, despite Vince Flynn's prescient forecasting ability, they ran the deficit into uncharted territory and didn't flinch. Even when confronted by this atrocity of fiscal irresponsibility, they claim that NOW!!!!! the deficit isn't a big deal, that it's really just a function of the percentage of GDP and we ought to all forget about it. This book starkly reveals the disconnect between conservative priorities of the 90's and the realized result nearly two presidential terms later. It's like looking back in time to a parade of nit-wits.
Fourth, the good guys don't do bad things. The Special Ops team kills only who they want and never any innocents - just the politicians. The bad guys leave a wake of messy slaughter and civilians whenever they use murder as a tool. Flynn spends way too much time making this point and beating the reader over the head with it . . . killing is good when only your target dies . . . but whatever happened to that oh so famous, though shalt not?
- CV Ric
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I hope the ending is illogical at least and is fiction. If thoughts are that powerful, they need to be resrained earlier. I don't know who survivied but he might feel very guilty about the others earlier and question if he had to survive. Logic can be quite painful when left alone, but sometimes it has to be
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I have no idea how this book has received the ratings it has so far. I am a Lead Software Verification Engineer and am a perl programmer (for 10 years now) and found this book a complete waste of time and money. It has zero new ideas. The book tells you how to write standard tests for perl (this could have been accomplished in 2 pages). I love the format of the book. Please look elswhere if you wanna learn about perl or testing or perl testing
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I was reading about my son. It all sounded familiar and the concepts and suggestions made good sense. Really talked about a framework of letting the decision making (and the consequence of their decision) remain with the teen. Then half way the book screeched in a new direction. All of a sudden the book went from experienced practitioner point of view to subjective parent point of view. When it comes to sex the authors don't want you to leave the decision with the teens, they want to take that one back, which weakens the premise they present.
The authors danced around abstinence while never taking a really firm position - which I would have respected, if not agreed with. Then in the middle of that chapter one of the authors invokes Christ into the conversation/solution. If I knew this book was written in context of a particular belief system, I wouldn't have spent the $22. I would have wanted to know that in advance. Tripping over this midbook has completely disappointed me and diminished the content and message of this book.
Buyer Bewar
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First off anyone who gave this book five stars was employed by the publisher to up the rating that simple. I mean look at some of them they are so cheesy one of them actually refers to the author as Mr. Miller who is he brown nosing for sounds like a greeting card they are so "textbooky" and insincere. The book itself is almost entirely filler on how to read music (which half the music books in Borders are or they are just giant scale books that are reemed out like saw dust totally useless, which leads to the great difficulty on how to actually find an explantion to this jargon and then someone comes along and says they have an answer that will make things clear but then they fall short) up until half the the book and many times periodically things are just repeated terminology loosely defined such as hook which is just recording industry jargon not theory. Book never goes into the physical principals that would actually explain some things in it as to why the notes themselves are in the order they are such as acoustics, never got an answer as to what a whole step or a half step was by the way and when I asked many teachers and questioned them they knew nothing or gave a circular answer defining it themselves without an outside reference only to find that they were just parroting it all along. The problems with this is everything is assumed in the entire field. I recommend the only book that I have found that made some sense to me called Fractals in Music by Charles Madden much more organized and assembles things from the very beginning working into more and more complex shapes and structures.
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When I found "Hour Game" in paperback at our local library's monthly book sale, I thought I had hit pay dirt. But I cannot believe that this author who wrote such gripping gems such as "The Winner" and "Absolute Power" could turn out such a dog. Long, boring, and confusing. I fear that Mr. Baldacci hired an "aspiring young writer" to "help" him crank out a quick book. I cannot pass this book along to my friends -- I couldn't do that to them. It will be tossed into our blue recycle bin. What a waste. What a shame.
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I first read this book back in the mid-80s after watching the miniseries starring Gary Cole as Dr. Jeffrey MacDonald. The miniseries absolutely riveted me, as did this book. But upon repeated readings, I began to pick up inaccuracies and errors. I found that the book, rather than answering questions about this case, caused me to question more and more.
Joe McGinniss, while never a stellar writer to begin with, was eventually exposed as the worst kind of writer, twisting facts and quotes to serve his own purpose, which was to sell his theory and therefore, his book. I have nothing against Mr. McGinniss forming his own opinion as to Dr. MacDonald's guilt or innocence, but to omit certain facts and blatantly lie about others and misquote principals and research in order to further your own propaganda is sickening.
If you want Joe McGinniss' theory on how and why the murders happened, with no regard to the cold hard facts and legal evidence, pick this book up. If you want to read about the case, with all the facts in place both supporting and questioning Dr. MacDonald, do as other reviewers have suggested and read "Fatal Justice", a far more in-depth review of the case and evidence and form your own opinion.
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For the most part, the author seems to have pretty good information for the time of the book's printing, but for anyone who wants to read this book on purely scientific terms, be warned; there are several places where the book goes awry, for example: the author states that tracks of tyrranosaurus indicate that it was a solitary animal, occasionally hunting in pairs. Problem: no tracks of a t. rex have been discovered to date, a decade and a half after the writing. Aside from that and a few other points, though, the book is good reading
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I personally do not see how this book could have won a Newbery medal. While the author portrays sibling rivalry effectively, that is about the only positive aspect of this book. The fact that the teenage girl protagonist has a crush on an elderly man is disgusting and is presented as not only being acceptable but understandable. Sara's family is also unsupportive to her sulky and jealous attitudes. Her grandmother is a busybody and consantly antagonizes the family. Sara's twin sister gets all the attention and love, leaving Sara starving for parental care. Finally, Christianity is portrayed as harsh and judgemental. This book could possibly be acceptable for adults but never for children and I would not recommend it to anyone. I wasted my time with this book: please don't waste yours.
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A subject of eternal fascination especially for basketball "nuts" who grew up in New York. We idolized the terribly tarnished CCNY "Wonder Five" who set an unbreakable record by winning both the NIT and NCAA titles in 1950 (it can never be repeated because of the way the tournaments are now scheduled). This book is a fictional addendum to Rosen's non-fiction treatment of the original basketball "scandals", as he outlines in his NPR interview. Unfortunately there are glaring albeit minor errors -- Broadway and 43rd Street cannot be on the east side of Manhattan; Madison Square Garden has been on 23rd Street, and is now above Penn Station; in between it occupied the block bounded by 49th and 50th Streets and Eighth and Ninth Avenues. These errors are particularly galling in a book by a New Yorker who played at Hunter College, and they undermine the author's credibility and care in writing. Since this is a fictionalized account of a real occurrence, the game of who is this really is inescapable. Hence it is most unfortunate that Rosen in his interview avers that some players who were not prosecuted went on to pro careers, and "a couple are in the Hall of Fame." This tarnishes by inclusiveness such stalwarts as Bob Cousy (Holy Cross, '49), Dick McGuire (St. Johns, '48), Bobby Wanzer (Seton Hall, '46), and Frank McGuire, the legendary coach at St. John's, North Carolina and South Carolina
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Imposible to do so with no item received
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Save yourself time and buy any book by Greg LeMond (Greg Lemond's Complete Book of Bicycling) or John Howard (John Howard's The Cyclist's Companion) -- they are both far better writers, well-rounded bicyclists, and honorable family men -- good role models for all true cycling athletes, young and old alike. Lance Armstrong is good at chronicling his many bicycling events and achievements in this book, but what is notably missing from this text is the experience of a genuine champion. Lance Armstrong would sell his own grandmother's last pair of socks in order to succeed -- leaving his family behind in order to pursue his one-dimensional goal of winning the Tour de France. He sold his wife and three helpless kids for bicycling success and he degrades the sport and his wonderful family by publicly flaunting his association with a pathetic and desperate rock singer ... yawn. Better to settle down with Greg LeMond's wonderful book for real depth, excitement, and rich experience and learn how to become a well-rounded cyclist and a real champion cycling athlete and family champion as well
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Once upon a time I was given a vanity-published book to review. It was an illogical mess, full of breathtaking non-sequiturs. While reading "Iron John," I couldn't help thinking of it. The vanity book, however, was at least entertaining.
John Eldredge refers to "Iron John" liberally in his book "Wild at Heart," and because I considered that a ringing endorsement, I purchased a copy. I can't tell you what a chore it has been to finally finish reading it. The hardest part was not flinging it away in disgust about 17 times.
It's one thing to write a rambling tome full of obscure references; it's another to publish it. That people can slog through it and call it "profound" and "important" is baffling; what's even more mind-boggling is that people claim that this book "spoke" to them. I think it's a case of "I'd better say I understand it, or people will think I'm not erudite." Well, let me be erudite about it: "Iron John" is a big, steaming pile of New Age crapola. Don't say I didn't warn you
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After anticipating the arrival of this book (that I ordered some time before publication after hearing of it), I was disappointed. Although the subject is timely, the writing style smacks of academia and therefore, will not appeal to the mainstream (reader). Because I'm tenacious by nature, I finished the book, but found my mind wandering throughout because it simply did not hold my attention. Too bad - it could have been inspirational
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Do you like romance novels? Do you call your dogs your babies? This is the book for you. The thriller aspect of this book is far overshadowed by the romance portion, and the annoyingly repetitious mentioning of the dog could possibly drive most readers over the edge. This was my first Johansen novel, and it most certainly will be my last. Two stars for actually wrapping up the story without leaving too many loose ends.
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This novel about a community in some desert village is written with the simplicity of language that one associates with old myths, and underlying the story are indeed echoes, sometimes close and sometimes rather distorted, of ancient myths. God is allegorized as Gabalawi, the remote and mostly unseen owner of the estate of which the Children of the Alley are supposed to be his heirs. The central character in each of the five stories is up against the selfish and oppressive overseers who dominate the estate and its inhabitants with the help of their retinue of gangsters. The first of the stories evokes that of the expulsion from the Garden of Eden and the story of Cain and Abel; the second that of Moses and Pharaoh; the third that of Jesus; the fourth that of Muhammad.
Then there is a fifth story, in which the central figure, a `magician', is presumably a scientist. He tries to discover the secret of Gabalawi He fails to find it, but in the process he is instrumental in the death of Gabalawi `who had been easier to kill than to see'. It makes no difference: the scientist, who has invented a weapon of great destructive power, is forced to put it at the service of the new overseer, and the Children of the Alley remain as oppressed as ever, though they remain hopeful that one day `magic' will put an end to their suffering.
Subtle the book is not, either in content or in style; and in my view is far too long and far too repetitive. The overseers and the gangsters in each generation have different names, but as individuals they are indistinguishable one from another. A large number of the characters are perpetually angry or violent. They mostly `shout', `scream', `shriek', `yell', `cry' or `sneer', which becomes rather tiresome.
The literary quality of this novel is, I think, greatly inferior to Mahfouz's rightly famous Cairo Trilogy which has contributed to his having become the only Arab to have been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. But it is a courageous book for an Egyptian to have written: it has been banned in Egypt; its allegories enraged the Islamicists and led to an attempt on the author's life.
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i love danielle steel! i`ve read ALL of her books so far.but secrets was a big disappointment to me.as far as i am concerned,ms.steel tried to change her style of writing in this book more to the kind of judith krantz or jackie collins (some explicit "parts" i didn`t like at all).simply NOT the danielle steel we like. the story itselfs is ok(gives the readers some "insights" behind the scenes of hollywood)but....
some of her books i`ve read over and over again. i am not going to touch secrets for a second time,however
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I can see how instructors would be enthusiastic about this book, but unfortunately it will in no way help the student develop their ear training. Here's the problem. The book and CD basically outlines a METHOD of ear training, it is not ear training itself. For example, for each step of the book there is one and only one example on the CD. It is just that, an example, not a training. So, there is one 14 note "lesson" on intervals and from this you are supposed to magically learn how to identify all the major intervals. I don't think so. However, if you were an instructor then you could use that example as a starting point to develop your own lessons and work with students in recognizing intervals. You could spend a month on variations of that lesson itself since that's the core of ear training. In fact, if you're an instructor you can use the whole book as a blueprint for a year long curriculum from recognizing intervals to recognizing chords.
By the way, the CD itself mostly uses really dull organ patches. The idea may have been to eliminate timbre as a distraction. However, since one of the goals of ear training is to distinguish timbre from tone, this is another example of how this book/CD in itself won't be of much use to students.
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AGELESS BODY is Deepak's attempt to neutralize the word "old" as in old age. The writer has a knack for making common words, like "body, "mind" and "self," into profound concepts. His technique is to overlay his abstract ideas with suggestive experimental studies. But ambiguity in interpreting these studies abound.
If you like poetry, Deepak may be your read: "The billions of changes occurring in our cells are only the passing scenery of life; (P. 36)" Or try to interpret this one: "The emptiness at the core of every atom is the womb of the universe; in the flicker of thought when two neurons interact there is an opportunity for a new world to be born. (P.40)"
At times he attributes to cells and DNA a creative intelligence to direct their own construction and at other times his designer is invisible. He would make a great spokesman for the current hocus pocus over "intelligent design." He can't accept the growth of any cell, even a plant cell, without an intelligence involved. He mentions and attacks evolution only one time on P. 115, asserting that the growth of a cell could never be a random process.
Deepak ends up in the very same thought circle as every other writer who tries to explain life in scientific terms: Intelligence is a self organizing entity and every cell evolved is only intelligence having a conversation with itself. Whether your word game tosses in the word "quantum" or not doesn't change much. What a solipsistic thought; what a solipsistic world. I wonder if his readers who actually experienced the oneness Deepak speaks of wouldn't, after awhile, go insane
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This book should get 0 stars; speaking as an artist myself, the theories laid out in this book are ridiculous. The basic gist of the argument seems to be that the work completed by the old masters was just too difficult to have been done without the use of optics, etc. To me it sounds like the desperate argument of a man who did not have either the talent or the determination to attain the skill of a great master, and therefore spent years constructing an elaborate excuse.
Admittedly, I could not even finish this book; after reading for the nth time a line of shaky, circumstantial evidence like "all artists know that the ellipse of that collar is very difficult to draw, but there are no correction marks, therefore optics must have been used," I could not even stand to keep reading! On the contrary, all artists who have spent time and dilligent effort in becoming technically skilled know that although that ellipse may be difficult, after a few years of daily drawing and painting it becomes second nature, and could very well be drawn naturally with minimal correction.
That is just one example... the book is filled with flaky examples such as those - Hockney claiming "this is too good to have been done without optics" or "this was too difficult to have been done without optics" - and I found myself thinking over and over that the man simply must not have been disciplined enough in his own art, if that is indeed what he thinks. And, modern artists must remember this: nowadays, the work of the old masters seems very difficult because in modern times artists get nothing like the education or practice time had by the old artists, for many reasons. Superior art education is very hard to find, and there are many distractions in the modern world (TV, computers, having to hold a 'day job', lack of patrons, etc.) and therefore modern artists usually lack discipline and do not live and breath art in quite the same way that the old masters did. Therefore, most will never attain the skill of the old masters. But that is certainly no reason to assume that the old masters could not have done what they did without the help of technology!
Some of the other examples used as 'evidence' refer to 'odd' proportion, perspective, etc. in otherwise masterful work. I am surprised that this author (and those readers who are artists) apparently does not realize that throughout history, great artists did NOT necessarily strive for EXACT realism - even nowadays, photorealism is not necessarily considered great art by many artists, because after all we are ARTISTS not cameras! The point of realist art is to ACCENTUATE the reality, not to copy it! Therefore, many inconsistencies in proportion, perspective, etc. evident in old masters' work are not 'oddities' or 'mistakes', but purposeful exaggerations or adjustments to benefit the composition.
All that being said, I think this book may even be harmful to the budding artist, since it may cast doubt in the mind of the art student that he or she can build the skill necessary to paint in a masterful way without the help of 'trickery' or technology of some sort. Instead, an art student should be encouraged to build skill, discipline, and self-reliance - because THAT is the true secret of the great masters
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This book expounds endlessly on how best to limit the impact of people on the backcountry in the very best traditions of the Sierra Club. It's more of a philosophy book than a "how to" book. If anyone wants to learn how to backpack and/or camp, he would be better advised to buy the several books by Karen Berger and Chris Townsend, in particular The Backpackers Handbook
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I did not finish the book (I got about 70% of the way through before I realized I could not bear to read one more page). Maybe the remaining part of the book would have been better, but I doubt it. This is the first time I can ever remember not even having even the slightest interesting in finishing a book. The characters were flat and plot went nowhere. Please - there are million of books out there. Spare yourself, and find something else to read. Anything.
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Ivalooshun is skary. i red the bibel. the bibel saez ivalooshun is bad. ivalooshun shud go away. i red wer sumwun saed the werld goez arund the sun but that is a lie. luk in the ski and yu can see the sun goe arund the werld. monsters is skary to. monsters shud goe away
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Book goes over a lot of information in a very short time, but not much of that information is worth anything unless you're building a circle-track or drag car. Took the hit and ordered Stanforth's Competition Car Suspension
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The only good thing about this book is that it was short. Even in writing about a great man with incredible contributions to our country, Gary Hart repeats himself over and over and over and over again. OK, the Monroe Doctrine is important, I GET IT!
I read about 2 or 3 presidential biographies per month and I cannot remember a book as bad as this. If you want a quick view of James Monroe, you can read the first chapter and skip the rest but this book is not good for more than that
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After reading the trilogy, I was left wondering what the hell happened? I have just read all 3 of the His Dark Materials trilogy and what was a strong start in book 1 and 2 is utterly demolished in this clunker.
Pullman allowed his eagerness to bash religion to completely destroy an engaging story - one of the most creative stories I've come across in 20 years of reading fantasy. There isn't even a remote chance of a sequel to fix up this mess. If you look up `anticlimax' in the dictionary, you'll see a picture of this book. From first page to last, time is wasted on boring characters, while all the good ones are either killed off, or just MIA for the entire book. Spoilers ahead.
What about Lyra and her parents? Somehow, she never knows what happened to them and after all she has been through is supposed to be content with going back to school like a good little girl? She never even confronts them to try and understand their motivations. And Will just goes back with Mary Malone to her apartment so they can figure out how to avoid the cops. Over a cup of tea, naturally. And that's it for him.
In addition to all that, this book doesn't even seem to be connected to the first two. None of the characters resonate they way they used to and instead of being good friends, Will and Lyra fall in love and have sex at the tender age of 11 or 12 . . . all in the last 30 pages. What happened to the story, for cripes sake?! And what happened to the `temptation'? Was choosing not to stay with Will her way of not succumbing to it? The whole premise is just so lame to start out with. As an earlier reviewer pointed out all the windows that were opened for centuries didn't endanger the universe, why not leave one open for 60 or 70 years to give Lyra and Will a chance to know each other. The flimsy reasoning behind this is just as contrived as their sudden and immediate love for one another. Supposedly, they had more than gonads going for them, they survived death together!
Pullman didn't feel like thinking it through, he just wanted a gut wrenching ending. In addition to that, he wanted to mock the reader by taunting us with the `reality' of knowing that nothing they did in the trilogy has any hope or meaning. All of Will and Lyra's efforts are futile, kind of like - guess what? religion for the rest of us morons.
After having the reader go through endless pages on the mulefa-elephant aliens or whatever, ultimately the characters the reader wants to know about disappear with barely a whimper. Iorek Byrnison, Lee Scoresby - instead we get page after page about Mary Malone the Disaffected former Nun. Pullman all but pants in his eagerness to give the finger to anyone of us who believes in Him or anything for that matter!
This is NOT children's literature, it's a hate ridden manifesto that is more suitable for adults who at least have some way of maintaining some sort of perspective throughout this sloppy mess. It's totally dishonest to sell this as a children's book, or even as a competent work of fiction. All of the painstaking work of the first two books is undone with this one.
We never get closure on Lyra's parents.
We never really understand what Dust is and where it comes from.
We never see Will reunited with his mother.
We get a lame battle where `god' dies and no one even knows why or how.
Lyra and Will fall in love, but have to `sacrifice' it so that all the windows to other worlds can be shut forever, with only flimsy reasoning behind it.
The mulefa and Mary Malone's work together amounts to nothing, everyone just goes home. Presumably, Will goes home, although we never see it. All that yearning after his mother and so forth . . .nothing.
The major enemies are killed off too easily - and what about Armageddon? What happened to the Fortress and all the rebel angels and . . .you get the idea. It all just sort of disovles.
Mary forgot to be the Serpent, or else I missed that in one of the countless pages on the mulefa.
Another reader pointed out:
" Phillip Pullman could have written a masterpiece with this series. Instead, the story falls flat under the weight of the author's own agendas and mockeries. What a waste of time. I can't believe this book actually won awards. It stopped being thought-provoking and started being inane and silly."
It would have been better if Lyra had just awakened one morning and it was all a dream. Instead, relearning how to read the alethiometer will somehow enable her to build the Kingdom of Heaven in the course of her lifetime. Absurd.
This was one of the most disappointing and infuriating reads of my life.
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A bunch of junk. Not any of the really meaty excersises. An excuse for the auhor to make money
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If you adore the intellect and see in it the only way to the highest, purest, and most divine knowledge, than this is your book--but it isn't mine. Page after page of speculation about the higher realms open only to a mind freed from the crude considerations of the flesh....I kept hoping that Plotinus would realize his vision and disappear before finishing, but it didn't happen
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Camenson definitely has experience in this career with many "career books" to her credit. However, there are better books out there on writing with more information. This book follows the same old tired format that VGM books are 'not so' famous for. The internet has more info for a lot less money
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This book is total self-propogating hogwash. Garbage. Save your money, and your life, avoid this book like a big mac
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The plot of this book was interesting, and it could have been a good book. Unfortunately, it wasn't. The main problem for me was that the hero is dispicable, and the heroine has absolutely no self esteem! Even many of the the secondary characters are weak, miserable people!
The story starts when the hero finds himself drawn to the heroine even though he considers her a "dirty little nobody". Once she gets a makeover and is actually beautiful, he begins pressuring her to become his mistress even though she is an innocent marriageable female by regency standards. Because she is the daughter of a "cit", he can't imagine why she has any reservations about the deal. He says charming things to her like "how much do you think your virginity is worth anyway". Now that's romance!
Meanwhile, even though she is unbelievably insulted by the hero many times, she finds herself drawn to him too. For me their relationship was sort of like an abuser and his victim. She never stood up for herself, and you felt sorry for her.
Of course the plot twist involves a mystery about her parentage... only its not really a mystery because almost everyone knows the hero is a Dukes granddaughter, including her. In fact just about the only one who doesn't know is the hero, which provides the dilemma. He would of course be willing to marry her if only he knew she really wasn't a nobody!
Will anyone tell him? Will he wise up and offer to marry her even though she isn't good enough for him? Will she give in to her desires and become his mistress since he doesn't think she is good enough for him to marry? Of course it all works out, and he actually proposes to before he finds out she actually is good enough for him. Ugh!!!
This could have been a good book if the "mystery" had been handled better, and the characters were written differently. As is, it is a sad regency tale
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I didn't like the only other Dean Koontz book I've ever read, Watchers, but I enjoy reading Kevin Anderson's stuff so I thought I'd give Koontz another try because I'm a reasonable person and I understand that not everyone can like everything by an author. On to the review: I realize that this book was initially meant to be a screenplay but I think the authors would have been wise to rewrite it instead of just tweaking it a little when the movie deal fell through. The dialog is mind-numbing and predictable. Every time there was a car scene I could guess what kind of conversation would be held. "You drive too fast!" "Are you my mother?" Over and over and over.
The idea was good. A modern-day Frankenstein . . . or rather a Frankenstein that had never died and had made it to present day (yes, I know, Frankenstein was the doctor, not his monster. But you get what I'm saying.). But the dialog read exactly like a movie script would, or like a play. This book had so much potential but the authors' laziness in not rewriting the entire thing after the movie wasn't made cost it dearly
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Typical Feinstein ("A Season on the Brink" excepted). Quick, gossipy, superficial, fawning, etc., etc. This book is about the 2002 U.S. Open Golf Championship at the Bethpage Black Golf Course, a New York State Park course on Long Island. The subtitle, "Inside the Ropes at Bethpage Black," is used here as a figure of speech, meaning "behind the scenes." ("Inside the ropes" is normally used in the context of a professional golf tournament to refer to the actual playing area itself -- spectators are separated from the golfers, caddies, officials, and other chosen few by thin ropes that tell the spectators how close they can get to the action.) Feinstein's purpose is to give the reader a look at the unfolding of a golf tournament from its conception to its completion. We see U.S Golf Association (the organization that conducts the tournament) leaders in action and learn something about the logistics of putting on a golf tournament (e.g., 4,850 people willing to volunteer their time so that the professional golfers and U.S.G.A. can have a huge payday), about random qualifiers and random competitors, and about the resurrection of the Black golf course. Yet the book does not fulfill its promise. My guess is that Feinstein's indebted to too many golf people for both his past and anticipated future lifestyle to offer the kind of critical insights and analysis I had hoped for
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All the reviews so far sound like personal friends of B.W. who are puffing the book. The book is simple and would require more information. So why not just go buy a book with more information.
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Well After I received the book I have to say I was quite disappointed because I am one of those people who gives great importance to presentation in the books .After I read the reviews I thought I was going to get a book with lots of nice photographs and various nicely set tables .It turned out that it was just like an encylopedia with lots of recipes and couple of boriiinggg pictures .If you are a visual person like me who likes to read cookbooks when you go to bed DONT BUY IT.The other important thing was that many important ingredients were missing in the greek food that was presented
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I forced myself to finish this book before I reviewed it, and being through with it now, I feel as though I've learned very little. I had so many problems with this book, or rather the way of writing, mostly stemming from the completely pompous arrogance of the author, that this was a difficult read. In his defense, he is, in MOST things, very thorough. My main and overwhelming problem with this book was that the author was arrogant enough to believe that he could relay what Leonardo was (or as he sometimes put it "must have been") thinking or feeling. While I give Mr. Bramly credit as a man very much versed in his subject, in my opinion, that still gives him no right to use what I understood to be a faithful biography as a place to put forward his own views. Since he himself stresses that Leonardo's famous notebooks contain little to no personal thoughts or feelings, he has no basis for those statements and they are only his overconfident postulations. In the instances that there is a controversy over some area of Leonardo's life, the author is very good about stating that there is a dispute regarding the matter, but only puts forward his OWN opinion, and his reasons why he believes what he does, without explaining the opposite side of the matter. In this manner, he forces his thoughts on the reader without leaving them any choice in the matter. Sentences beginning with "I think" or "In my view" are not uncommon. He also makes certain assumptions about the reader, referring often to other artists' works with the assumption that the reader is as knowledgeable as he is about them. Also, he occasionally goes into great detail regarding a painting or drawing of Leonardo's, often drawing attention to coloring or texture, without ever showing it, though the book has many drawings and paintings throughout. The author is an undoubtedly intelligent, well-learned man, very erudite where Leonardo da Vinci is concerned, but entirely overbearing in his writing. Overall, unless you are well versed in the Renaissance artists and don't mind being pulled out of a book by the author's VIEWS, then I would HIGHLY suggest staying away from this one
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A little outdated, quite a few beers here aren't made anymore. Beer reviews are always personal opinion, and you'll read a bunch of people complain in these reviews that this guy doesn't know what hes talking about. I'd ignore what they say, everybody has their own preference.
Think about this before you buy this book:
1) Why do you need to hear what somebody else things of beers?
2) its very out dated... 5 years is a long time
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After reading all the author's books so far, i realized he is repeating himself. In all his books (including the ones which Myron Bolitar isn't present) there are the same elements in the plot: disappeared person who might or not be dead, mobster guys who might or not be involved in the plot, the hero gets beaten by mosbter guys and is always saved "in the last minute", someone wealthy and with lots has interest in the plot but no one knows for sure. As the plots became being built upon the same structure, the suprise is getting less and less after each book. Being someone who started liking mistery books after reading all Agatha Christie's ones, and because each book of hers is completely diferent from the other, i look for the same originality in other mistery books.
Of course the book is good for a first time Harlan Coben reader. I just didn't like it that much because of the repetitions, which make very easy to guess the final, spoiling the suspense of the reading
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Was not impressed. Narrow scoped, personal reflections, applications limited. I also read the male companion book Wild at heart and was also not impressed
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I am not a right winger whatsoever, am against our involvement in the Mid East but did read this book. I can't say it better than Alan Dershowitz who commented about Chomsky's writing in general: many people buy his books and the page that is folded down is never greater than page 16
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While the book covers some interesting aspects of mid and high model rocketry, it is not as comprehensive as other books and dated given the advances in the hobby of the past years. If you are looking for a book to complement your model rocketry library, this will be a useful addition. If you are looking to take the step from basic model rocketry into mid or high power model rocketry, there are other books that better describe "how to".
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As a beef eating Hindu I am very much interested in finding how cows became holy for Hindus and beef a forbidden thing to eat. I browsed through this book in a book store and found it to be very disappointing.
First, it appeared to be intended more for creating controversy than for informational purposes. It clearly had a bias which turned me off.
Second, I am generally up-to date on current issues and remembered that it did not generate all that controversy as mentioned on the cover of the book. There were some rumblings but nothing of the sort described on the covers ("the government of India demands be ritually burned").
Later I searched on google with the book title and words "ban", "government of India" and found no news reports relating any government of India attempts at banning this book. There were no reports on ban by Allahabad High Court either. All I found were book reviews on the book and other articles written mainly by political commentators known for their leftist opinions.
Third, I found some material on internet on how the author misinterpreted much of the scriptures to support his conclusions.
It basically left me disappointed and I am still searching for some reliable and accurate material on this matter.
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I bought this book before my first trip to Austria. I had a
sinking feeling while reading it that it was mostly a
pastiche of unusable generalizations. That turned out to be
true. What shall we do with a paragraph that tells us that
Austrian women are strong-minded and independent and
organize their homelife well, although many go to work?
This book might have some value for a person who had never
left their english-speaking homeland before and needed to
be warned that people are sometimes naked in the sauna
or at the beach. It also provides some amusing anecdotes
about language (especially viennese) and useful info about
festivals.
Mostly, though this book was good for reading aloud to
Austrian friends. I would quote it as an iron-clad
authority when their behavior didn't quite match the
book's version and thereby amused them tremendously.
--Lynn Hoffman, author of THE NEW SHORT COURSE IN WINE and
the forthcoming novel bang BANG from Kunati Books.ISBN
978160164000
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This book is written from the viewpoint of a flaming socialist with the attitude that anything white or European or is overly valued in American history textbooks. Loewen does have many valid points about what history textbooks omit, but the degree to which he is clearly slanted to the left is ludicrous. "Lies My Teacher Told Me" could have been an amazing book, but all it did was aggrivate me and motivate me to write a 23 page paper debunking half of what the author wrote, much to the dismay of my idiotic Sociology professor. The only reason I didn't give the book 1 star is because the overall intent and effort put forth were good, but the book as a whole is just far too biased
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Is that those who read it and believe it, believe they actualy have girlfriends!!! Come on! admit it you are guys who wear black sabbath t-shirts and live in your parents basements. You also believe that you can get control of you live by chanting some spells from a book made to get your money. Look, go get a hair cut, take a bath and loose 10 pounds and you will probably get that girl friend that you talk about. Oh by the way the Necronomicon is fiction! . . except for the real copy that is in my basement, in my parents house where I used to live when I was 15
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Let me first say that once upon a time I liked Larry The Cable Guy. After reading this book, I now think he is one step above slime. To be fair, some jokes ARE funny and some stories ARE enjoyable and amusing.
He is anti-PC which is totally fine with me and even goes as far to pick on some appropriate targets like Rosie O'Donnell, Michael Moore, Barney Frank, Barbara Streisand, and "that fat girl from the Dixie Chicks", among others. No problem there in my opinion. That is the entirety of the positive things I can say about the book.
The rest is just babble, often repeated over and over again, that even Larry lovers will find annoying. A couple things that really bothered me. The first is his constant and unrelenting picking on and making jokes at the expense of "retards" and Down's Syndrome children. He must use the term "retard" at least fifty+ times in the book. This is appreciably different than making a joke about, say, Michael Moore. Moore made the decisions and taken the actions in his life to make him an apt target for jokes. The Down's Syndrome children did not. My opinion of Larry The Cable Guy dropped to zero or below after reading his attack on "retards". He also racially sterotypes in the book. Many of these jokes can be funny if taken in context and at least those people can respond. The Down's Syndrome kids can't. Larry, I can only hope God (in whom you so mightly believe in according to your book) grants you a "retard" child to love and care for. Then, I would like to read your next book. I suspect you would gain some sorely needed wisdom very quickly.
The second theme in the book that came through loud and clear is that Larry is a fraud in many senses. He plays the good 'ol Bubba. He ain't too bright and he ain't ever changed since he left the farm. His "celebrity" - his word not mine - has not gone to his head. OK, Larry. Why then the better than thou tone throughout the book - including speeches and lectures, including serious topics such as abortion? Why do virtually every one of your stories and jokes involve putting someone else down? Why the unrelenting references to your "celebrity"? The terms "meet and greet" and "after-party" were used over and over and over, as an example. Do you really think your fans have ever been to one of these events or even know what they are? Well, you are wrong. They are mentioned constantly to remind everyone how big of a star you have become. That's Hollywood-speak my country, fart loving, nose picking friend.
Overall, this book is a true disappointment and Larry The Cable Guy is a true moron (see doesn't that sound better than "retard").
My Father always taught me there are two types of dumb people. Those who are dumb and know they are dumb. And those who are dumb but are so dumb, they don't realize it. The former category usually shuts up (knowing they are dumb). The latter category normally rambles on and on like some drunk in the gutter. The first group is obviously smarter than the second.
Larry The Cable Guy falls smack dab in the last group. The fact that he has stumbled into some sense of success is fueling his rambling and babbles in this book. Make jokes, Larry, and forget about your opinions on say abortion and the like.
Unfortunately, Larry can't see the obvious. Like virtually every celebrity he cites and makes fun of in the book, he has become exactly one of them. A thin layer of "Good 'Ol Boy" on top, covering a core of venom and "celebrity". He plays the role pretty good until one gets under the sheets.
My suggestion: Don't buy Larry's act and, by all means, don't buy the book.
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I wonder how long it will be before Frost's literary stock is devalued as much as it deserves to be. These are trite and banal poems that do not ring true or sincere. Frost seems distant from both his poems and the reader. What he has to say is obvious and unoriginal. How he says it is on the level of a hallmark greeting card at its best; at its worst, it is no better than a limerick. Posthumous revelations about his horrific cruelty to others and his shrewd creation/manipulation of his celebrity image as the New England farmer-poet only confirm that there was something seriously wrong with this man and his poems that an earlier generation missed. How earlier generations could find genius in such obvious observations is astounding.
Bad poetry from a twisted man
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The author really just could not hook me. A lot about food but not sure what else
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I did not find this book very helpful. There is an entire chapter dedicated to which expensive pots are the best to "invest" in (it seems the pricier the better, and I mean several hundred dollars, I actually went to stores and priced the recommended brands) and what kind of fancy kitchen gadgets are needed to create gourmet meals. I am not a professional chef, just a simple housewife that enjoys preparing simple, good-tasting meals for my family, the recipes here seem to be time-consuming and complicated. Not much money to be saved here
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Cryptic and confusing muddle of mush. If this is the "new style" of writing, we are in trouble folks.
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For all of you looking for that favorite book "The Silly Book", join my club (not literally). The book that has the ode to Boodleheimer was written by Stoo Hample not Babette Cole. I have been searching for this book for years. Good luck everyone, and let me know if you find an extra copy for sale
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This book is offensive to at least one of the two genders, though it's hard to say which. It suggests that a man whose brain was transplanted into that of a sensual woman would become a wanton harlot, more or less. Whether that's more insulting to the male brain or the female body, I'm not sure, but the book portrays neither gender realistically.
I like Heinlein, and the first 100 or so pages of this book show a lot of potential, but after that the book descends into vapid sexual morass, and it's not even particularly good at being that.
The gender-swapping theme has been a common one in fiction and film in the last 30 years or so, but Heinlein joined the ranks of the many authors and directors who treated it as a chance to write pseudo-enlightened erotica instead of literature. More's the pity
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I was quite disappointed by this book, I was expecting something with more professional level content. It's all very amateur however, the artwork used in the examples is sub-professional at best.
I was hoping that the book would deal with some of the specific Pre-Press issues relating to comics artwork, but the chapter there was frustratingly slight. You would be much better to buy a a more general pre-press book.
The quality of the packaging and printing were also quite poor for a book that cost this much
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Tedious and inane come to mind. It is written as a first person narrative consisting almost entirely of a stream of disparaging comments about everyone else written in a "catty" pseudo-feminist style, rambling descriptions of Egyptian archaeology - real or imagined - thinly veiled racist comments about the "ignorant natives" of Egypt and inept sexual innuendo. The book is very slow moving and the plot seems forced. The characters do not come across as real. Very disappointing. Leave this one on the library shelf
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A little about golf and 'inside the PGA tour'... Plenty of gratuitous language 'n ornery Texans... Mostly about Dan Jenkins' views on relationships with women... Forced a couple laughs
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As a Certified Information Systems Security Professional, I can definitively state that this book does not cover everything that needs to be covered or in any depth whatsoever. I got this book based on the glowing reviews I found here, and I'm at a loss as to why these reviews would have recommended it.
The most aggrevating part about this book is the subtitle "An Integrated Approach to Security in the Organization." The book not only lacks effective security integration techniques, it doesn't seem to address the entire organization where it tries its half-hearted integration.
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I am a Jew living in a college town in Mississippi for the past 5 years. I was born & raised in the North. I think Evans should rename his book "Fiddler on the Roof in the South". His book is a very nostalgic look back at Jewish history - as it was in the past here. It's very much: the southern Jews were all so happy, they all fit in and were accepted, etc. He does cite a few instances where they had problems - but these usually involved us 'Yankee Jews', like the instances when a few (Yankee)Rabbis in the South fought for civil rights.
Evans should realize that times have REALLY CHANGED HERE! The evangelical Christians in my town (which is most people here) harrass me like crazy - 'I am praying for you!' 'Have you read the words of Jesus, who was a Jew like you?' 'When will you come to my Church'. Blah, blah, blah. Thank God for the minority of Catholics, Methodists, Presbyterians and a few others who live here. They are the only ones to accept me for the way I am, and the way I will stay - a Jew.
I want all who are reading this to realize that I am only speaking for my experience. Jews who reside in cities in the South have told me that they have had far better experiences, and that they cannot relate to what I am saying.
But I do want to ask Evans a few questions:
1) If things are so great for the Jews in the South: Why have you lived in New York for decades now???
2) Why don't you at least write either a new Forward to the book, a magazine article, etc., contrasting some of the ways in which the lives of Jews in the South have changed over time (for some of us at least), primarily due to the rise of the evangelical Christians?
I read Evans' books before I moved here, and nothing much he describes in his books is my life here. For a Jew who really cares about her/his religion living here is depressing; it is practically Jew-less; and, at best, the majority of a certain denomination of Christians here ignore me. (By the way, I am planning to move to a city!)
By the way, don't bother writing to me to tell me that I am "wrong", or to invite me to things like the Bible Study at your Church. Believe me, with all the praying for me that is going on in this town, and all the myriad attempts to convert me, if it hasn't happened by now, as they say in these parts, it just ain't gonna happen
| 0 |
Wow! I read all these great reviews and thought this would be a great book. Luckily, I got it out of the library & didn't buy it. I liked it at first, but then the situations got more & more implausible. Then I was reading it just to laugh at it. Some of the sentences in the book were completely ridiculous too. If I had the book here at work with me, maybe I could quote a couple descriptions that just had me rolling my eyes. Not a well written book at all in my humble opinion. Glad the rest of you enjoyed it anyway
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This book is very dissapointing. Sure, this book is full of information, but does not know how to teach. This book is not completely written in step by step method. Before you actually start touch your project, you are fed up with information. I even found a couple of mistakes in earlier chapter. DVD comes with this book, but this DVD is not a lesson project like Apple Pro Training Series. Not useful.
If you are beginner and start studying DVD Studio Pro 4, don't by this book! You're going to waste your money. Buy the one from Apple Pro Training Series, which is much better, easy to understand.
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Excellent , how to technical reference, easy to read and understand, a must have book for those interested in biodiesel, and / or waste vegetable oil
| 0 |
By chance before picking this up I had just finished The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers, and was struck by the similarities and differences. It's a great "compare and contrast" pair, as an exercise for high-schoolers.
Both are written as first-person accounts by teen-aged girls and are roughly contemporary. Heart published in 1940, and Castle in 1948, both about life in the 30s.
Both families are poor. In Castle though, there is never any question that the girls might go off and get jobs. This is supposedly because they "don't know how to do anything". So instead they sell off their belongings and get by on scraps of bread and the odd bit of butter. How charming! They are "eccentric", which seems enough in the author's eyes to exempt them from the expectation of supporting themselves. Only Stephen the handsome young son of the late housekeeper, enamored of Cassandra, does work and gives the family his entire salary. But he is of the class that is expected to toil after all. Even he is rewarded in the end--able to avoid labor with an easy job similar to that of step-mum Topaz--striking poses.
Unlike the looming and grinding poverty of Heart then, the poverty in the Castle never amounts to more than a lark--educated folks playing at being poor until they're rescued by romantic circumstance. Not so in America where Mick Kelly, who didn't know how to do anything either, went off to work at Woolworth's, and to a life of little hope.
In Castle the solution comes in the form of that classic deus ex machina, the inheritance. Two dashing young wealthy Americans one of whom has inherited the castle, show up just in time, with their chatty modern mum. They throw money around and talk too much, in the cliched extravagant American style. Most of the remainder of the novel consists of Cassandra and her sister Rose swooning over one brother or the other, with an eventual romantic result that assures all the characters of economic well being.
It's all so very charming, bourgeois, and harmless. If your life is hard don't worry--a man will show up to rescue you!
The reviews for this novel in Amazon are overwhelmingly positive. Smith was obviously talented. Her writing is elegant and a pleasure to read. I wish she had given Cassandra a little more ambition.
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As far as style goes, I found this pretty boring from what I saw in the bookstore. Glad I never bought it, Races of Eberron is much better, as it has three great races (fourth isn't so hot) including one Living Construct type.
In fact, from Races of Eberron I made one Changeling Druid who has near complete Cold Adaptation and Heat Adaptation (from environment series), and a Warforged Monk which was effective against lycanthropes.
What can Races of the Dragon possibly give you? Flying creatures? Firebreathing creatures? You could be better off with weaked-down angel or better yet just a birdfolk race (like Raptorans in Races of the Wild, which by the way also has more variety with its Catfolk). As for firebreathing, a feat could probably give you the whole fire-eating/fire-blowing act and save you the whole freakish thing of having weird blood.
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I didn't have especailly high hopes for this book. I think there has been a gradual decline in the quality of HH books over the years, and this one brings it to a new low. Basically, it's waaaaaay too long. At 850 pages, it's a monster read, and a slow one. That's not always a bad thing - sometimes if you like the characters it's nice to just hang out with your friends for page after page. But not here. Why is it necessary to describe in detail the exact movements of a treecat using sign language? For several paragraphs? More than once? Why are we given pages of liturgy for religious services? I think I'd be in a very small minority when I confess that I quite like the 1662 Prayer Book, though I can't quite work out why it would be revived in the distant future when it's been out of use here for decades! Maybe it was easy to cut and paste, and got the word count up.
And then there's the space combat - a strength of the series, especially the first three or four. But there's the rub - there are only so many ways you can describe a spaceship blowing up. By the 11th book in the series I can't be the only person out there whose eyes are beginning to glaze over when we get to the battle sequences.
But the big problem - spoiler alert! - is the way in which Weber solves the love triangle we left the last book with. Honor loves Hamish. Emily loves Hamish. Hamish loves Honor and Emily. What to do? It turns out that there's an easy solution. After about 400 pages of agonising (not to mention most of the previous book) it seems that Honor can marry them both. A bit outre? Seemingly not - apparently such arrangements fall well within the accepted norms of Manticoran law and custom. (Although we've never had a whiff of this before.) But what really gets me is that the reason it didn't happen about halfway through the last book is that (get this), gosh, no-one thought of it. It seems that no-one ever told Mr Weber that if you shoot someone with a gun in Act V, the gun better have been hanging on the wall in Act I.
All-in-all, I can only say, please Mr Weber. It is time to bring the series to an end. Please do it soon
| 0 |
[the above is an actual quote from the book]
I don't usually read romances, but got this one at the library. I thought: Thriller. Hijacked plane, navy seal...all the right stuff.
And the beginning was promising. Stan fixes everything, and has a human side to him that was compelling.
Then the plot hit the fan! As a thriller it stunk. The highjacking was interwoven into the plot weakly, as an after thought. The romantic "tension" between the protagonists was forced and irritating. The dialogue is mundane. The message that horniness leads to true romantic (Sam and Alyssa) love is rubbish.
The only worthwhile character was the highjacked girl, and I think it was brave of the author to not have her come out unscathed.
The historic (WWII) componant was interesting.
But overall, I kept asking who the audience is for this book. Not lovers of thrillers like me--and I wonder, do romance readers even care about a highjacked plane, or was that just getting in the way of wondering whether Teri will ever tell Sam that she loves him!
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I don't really understand all the reviews about Sun Tzu's work. People saying that this one or that one is closer to the original; are there really that many experts in ancient Chinese out there. How can anyone say which is the best translation unless they are personally familiar with the original, in the original Chinese, and if that the case they should write their own version
| 0 |
I had to read this book for a political theory class in college. After talking with several other members I was happy to find out that I do not have the reading skills of a third grader...Benhabib goes out of her way to use vocabulary words that most educated people are not familiar with. The book is also not organized well. In order to really understand this book you will have to read it while taking notes. Points that could be grouped together for arguments are scattered throughout entire chapters and even the whole book. Benhabib may have used her vocabulary and lack of organization as tools to hide that the points she makes are not very well argued. Throughout much of the book Benhabib is trying to shoot down the theories of John Rawls and other theorists to support her views on migratory rights. To be honest, I disagree with her views and admit that I might have found her organization and vocabulary more tolerable if I agreed with her. Still, I do not have a problem with her making these claims if she did so logically. Much of her work is based on telling the reader why other people are wrong and she will use theories she supposedly already disproved in one arguement to justify her later arguments for disagreeing with other theories.
In short, I do not think anyone would want to read this book for pleasure, or intellectual curiosity. If you have to read The Rights of Others for a class, I extend my condolences.
| 0 |
Not easy for any beginner to use. Unless you knew exactly what kind of silver you were trying to identify i.e. English, Scottish, Irish... etc, it was a bit confusing. Marks are black & white, some not showing very good clarity and everything is in extremely in small print. If you just want to sort through tons of marks and dates, this may be for you. If you want information about your piece, pass it up
| 0 |
The author writes a book that does give you a mental workout while giving valuable insight into the theological/philosophical foundations of the emerging confession. There is value in that. I look forward to reading part two, the liturgical ideas section. The emerging church is keen on praxis, but the theological underpinings of this book in part one reminds me of past mistakes within Christendom, which I had hoped we were past.
Here are some things that I am amazed do not occur to the others reviewing this book, which it might help to know:
1. Rollins does not think it's possible to really "know" much theology with "certainty." In fact, to claim to have religious certainty is to hold an "idolatrous" view of God that is more our idea of God than really who God is. This is because it is virtually impossible to be objective for us humans, and because in his view, God was not all that interested in presenting much of Himself in any sort of nailed down way. The irony I could not miss was the dogmatism with which he himself expresses his own views.
He is very certain of his interpretations of "perceptive thinkers like Nietzsche, Freud, and Marx," Eckhart, Augustine, etc... and is very certain that his interpretations of the scattered verses from Scripture are correct. I found his use of proof texting for his ideas to be really, really, faulty. As I'm reading along I kept jotting in the margins all the times what he said was a really pretty clear misunderstanding of the New Testament. So, be prepared for a frustrating read if you know the Bible's basic content. He is certain that no one should be certain, but him. Ok, to be fair, he is not certain if Christianity is true, and says so on page 44, but he is certain that he should not be certain of Christianity. Nor, I guess, should you. With his view of "critique of ideology" how can he be so selective of what he is certain of. This seems like a self-defeating ideology.
So strong is his disdain for "knowing" with any real certainty that he would do away with apologetics as if it were no longer appropriate to try to base our beliefs on reason at all. I was reminded of the case Francis Schaeffer made quite well regarding those who do not have any reason to believe something is true, but who take a leap of faith and believe it anyway. Rollins needs to reread his Francis Schaeffer, in my opinion.
He says the church is not to be about giving answers, but helping raise in people: questioning. Indeed, given his views, how could he provide answers? This book may look deep. I propose, it is merely muddy.
2. He redefines age old terms. Orthodoxy is no longer about the content of what one believes, but how loosely one holds it. Certainty of revealed truth is dangerous, misinformed, idolatrous. Heresy is now a cute little thing. It has come of age. He says people will think his views undermine Christianity. We are to just take him at his word that his views won't do so, but he does not really make affirmations to give any reasonable comfort and any one would, I think, see the writing on the wall.
3. He seems to think the emerging church is the only hope for unity or evangelism in our time among post moderns. After reading his views I wonder if it is possible for post moderns, those like himself, at least, to even understand the gospel. He has not. How can he be a bridge? To be a bridge one must have footing on both shores. Christianity IS based on real events with real content that has been passed down, not without mystery, nor without debate, but in a very real and tangible way. he cannot be a bridge to something by changing that thing to something else.
4. He is right to be kind to people of other religions and to try to learn from them. The problem that is huge, and no one seems to notice, is that he seems incapable of learning or appreciating the Christians who are in other camps. He considers fundamentalists,and by logical extension many evangelicals, to be pharisees and the true heretics in his new definition of the term, heresy. I kept thinking, what kind of "fundamentalists" is he so angry at? He blasts the whole of that group and by extension most evangelicals, making generalizations that are misleading. Very unobjective. Unkind. Very divisive. Yet he thinks only his views can bring unity to Christendom. I can see his views bringing unity to all religions, but it will never bring unity to Christendom. He seems oblivious to the amazing amount of unity that now exists in Christendom. Times have really changed in the past 20 years. He is either unaware or has a different kind of unity in mind.
5. He makes God hopelessly difficult. God wanted, it seems, to speak in a plain brown wrapper...the common language of the people, the dust of humanity, the lowly donkey ride, the obscure but simple truth of the simple gospel. Rollins has wrapped God up in Nietzsche and while disdaining "human reason" as the means of knowing God has turned the living Christ who said "I am the truth" into an enigma of mental gymnastics that is so complex only man could concoct it. God's message is simple. It's clear where it needs to be. It hints at huge mystery beyond what is stated. Rollins makes it nearly all enigma, hinting at some possible truth out there from a winking God, who says out of one side of his mouth something is important and that we will be held accountable for knowing and obeying it, yet Who has been unwilling or incapable, given man's weaknesses, or His own lack of communication skills, to articulate it in such a way that a person can hold any theological content soundly.
If, as Tickle says, this is the Christianity of the 3rd millenium, then the Chrisitan faith is about to become the irrational man's religion, the anything goes religion, and following generations will have to deconstruct today's extreme and irrational over-reaction to fundamentalism. Peter, I can learn some stuff from you, and I'm sure some of my perception of what you were trying to say was likely lost in transmission. As it stands now I cannot agree with you on several points. Your views trouble me. Nothing against you personally. Forgive any kind of perceived condescending tone. I hope to enjoy the rest of your book much more, though, it will for me be an upper story with out a first floor. Regardless, if it inspires I'll come back and add a star. hmmm
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i tried reading it, and made it about 3-4 pages. i'm pretty sure that's a bad sign. i seem to recall mr. sedaris writing about his mother's bedpan or something. the impression i instantly got was "BEEP BEEP! PRETENTIOUS YOUNG WRITER PEDDLING SO-CALLED BAD CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCES FOR FAME, MONEY AND SYMPATHY." guess what, mr. sedaris? i don't give a (expletive deleted) about your so-called bad childhood. millions of people have bad childhoods and don't play the sympathy card. check out augusten burrough's books, they manage to have humor and touching moments without this kind of pretentious style.
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Yet another offering from the Kinkade art product assembly line. Pass on this -- Read real books and buy real art instead
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I had never read any of Vernor Vinges books before, but i had heard he was an excellent author, so I thought I would try this. Boy, am I glad I bought it used on Amazon for about only $4. I simply had no idea what was going on in this novel. The plot is unintelligible. I dont know what the Bioweapon the jacket refers to is? I dont know what "the Rabbit" is. I see that numerous other reviews here, did not know what was going on either. I do not understand how someone could write so incoherently.
The concept of someone who had Alzheimers getting cured & entering a future society is great - but it never goes anywhere. The only reason I did not fall asleep, was that I was trying to figure out what was going on, but I did could not even finish this book
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What this is: an epic adventure. It would be imappropriate to review the WOT series when speaking of the Prophesies of the Dragon book; it's also not really a supplement akin to, say, The Monster Manual for D&D--the only extra skills, feats, backgrounds, etc are those directly related to NPCs in the campaign. What Prophecies is designed to do is take a party of characters through their first six levels of adventuring, which correspond roughly to the first six books of the series of novels. The players are allowed to play a key behind the scenes role in the story of the novels and cameos have been scripted for many of the book's key characters. It's a really ambitious undertaking; players have to be given a compelling storyline, feel like they're making a difference in a campaign that covers over a year of game time, without letting them change what happens in the novels.
Does it work? I am currently GMing this adventure. On paper, it looks really good. Some of the scenes, especially in the later parts of the story, look exciting, moving even. Faile's cameo is perfect, for example. In practice, though, it's been an extremely frustrating experience. First, the early encounters (as pointed out by another reviewer) are unnecessarily difficult and add nothing to the plot. As things progress, the authors presume too much on the goals and motivations of the players. There is one chapter, for example, where the introduction says something along the lines of, "Upon entering the city, the players will want to find (a certain NPC) as soon as posible and will definitely want to investigate the actions of (another NPC)." The players in my campaign knew they wanted to talk to one of these guys eventually, but the other one was off their radar completely. Throughout, I've had to improvise ways to keep them approximating the plot line of the campaign and by chapter 3, they're feeling very manipulated.
The campaign assumes the party wants to do nothing more than hunt down dark friends and expose evil plots and will take great personal risk and go through great hardship (including, at one point, a monthlong trek through a winter wilderness without adequate provisions) on the chance of thwarting same. Characters with any other motivations (say, a character modeled after Mat or Nynaeve in the books) will feel forced into situations unnaturally. There has been more than one point where one of the players saying, "I *think* this is where the plot wants us to go."
So, in conclusion, while this adventure is excellent in its dreams and scope--and it's definitely better than something I could have designed myself--but it will fail often fail as a game. If you are intending to run a WOT campaign, buy this adventure, read it so that you thoroughly understand its scope BEFORE you even let your players make up characters. The characters need to be created to fit the story or the story won't work
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I'm sorry I wasted the money. I can see by the reviews you either love it or hate it. I'm not squeamish by nature, but this book is one continuous torture fest which not only targets human victims, but animals as well. Three quarter's way through, when I realized this indeed was the premise from beginning to end, I started skipping these parts (which got me to the last page quite quickly). I was bored and disgusted with the author. I believe he had a sick fetish and lived them out through these pages. In the end my eyeballs got six-pack abs from rollng around so much. This book is going on my "Do Not Lend" shelf as I value my friends and wouldn't consider them subjecting them to such gory nonsense.
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I thought that she was going to explain to you how to invest in rental properties without going into deep debt for yourself. However, the truth is you need money to invest in real estate. So, there's really no way around it, which made her book redundant. She just gave examples of 3 people with 3 different investment strategies. In the end, the one with the most number of rental properties ended up with the largest profit growth. I really did not find the book useful for someone looking to invest in rental properties.
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No, not really. Since this novella first appeared in Harper's some years back and then was the prologue in Underworld, this makes the third time it's appeared in print. And while it is brilliant, why buy this when you can buy Underworld for about the same price
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While I only am a little over half way through this book, I'm finding myself hating Will. He's pathetic and boring and not at all a character that I can cheer for. This book has been a tedious read overall. I keep pushing through because I feel like it has to get better, yet so far it has not. I'm happy that I checked this out from the library, so that I can return it and not have it collect dust on MY shelves. The only reason why I'm even writing a review is that I'm so shocked about all the positive comments this book has received thus far. I looked on Amazon to see if my thoughts were shared by others; I'm surprised that they are not. I usually like this genre of fiction, but in terms of this book all it is is a bunch of whining and self-loathing
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Cooper's book is yet another warm and fuzzy management guru text --- from yet another management guru who never served a day as a real manager, of a real company. It contains all sorts of motherhood and apple pie stories --- along with trite sayings such as "When you find a back door that's open, close it" or my personal favorite "Use the lanterns of your life to help light the way." If you're looking for an inspirational book, one with a solid basis, forget this one. You'd be better off reading the daily horoscope
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Being a second generation member of this so called "cult" and having parents that went through the same situation as the author, I can say that he must have too weak to fulfill his duty to god and true parents...It's very sad when a member must leave. By sacrifcing you are able to develop a stronger relationship with god. Hope this helps..
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This book provides excellent information about what rheumatoid arthritis is, how to distinguish it from osteoarthritis, etc.
However, I don't want to live with RA, I want to recover from it. As such, this book offers no help in this regard. It tells me about drugs that I can take and splints that I can wear to help me from becoming completely disabled, but offers me no hope of recovery.
In contrast, the book "Conquering Arthritis" by Barbara Allan, is the well-researched account of someone who took charge of their health and fought to recover from the disease, to get their life back. And succeeded! I'm well on the road to recovery myself by applying the principles in her book. Now that's a book well worth spending your money on
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I found it to lean very heavily towards a hierarchal view of the relationship between men and women. Men are to rule, and women are to submit to that rule. The authors appear to see women as perpetual children who need to be under the continual domination of men, rather than as adults who deal with men on an adult level. I suggest anyone who reads this books should also read "Discovering Biblical Equality." It gives another view of how the Christians world see the role of women
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I am in the planning stages of a new business venture. I have never written a marketing plan before and needed some insight and advice as to what tactics work and how to write the plan itself.
This book reads like a list of useful one-liner marketing tips and examples of how the author's friends have used them. It is not a how to book on writing a marketing plan, and it does not go into much depth as far as how you might accomplish the things that he recommends.
The most annoying part of this book is that every other page contains an advertisement for you to join some 12-week commitment mailing list that the author has created. He entices you by saying that you will receive additional tips and information for 12 weeks.
HELLO!!! McFLY!!! Didn't I just buy your book so that I could learn your marketing insights? YES! So then why do you make it seem like I just paid for the teaser information, and that the good stuff is behind the curtain that requires me to become a pawn in your marketing career? My price of admission stops at the price of this book, and it should not seem like I'm only getting half of the story that I paid for!
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This is not a book I would recomend for anyone serious interested in rune casting. It tells nothing of the history of runes and it seems if the writer figured out what tarot card closely matches each rune and then wrote the book based off that info. There are much better books out there for rune casting
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This book can be very damaging if you approach it with the idea that it is absolute truth. As some readers have complained, this is not really a "Christian" book because the focus isn't on Christ, it's on YOU.
A Biblically centered way of dating would put the focus on loving other people unconditionally, the way Jesus would, and not on trying to "find the perfect spouse." The whole premise of the book is rather un-Christlike: making yourself enticing enough to the opposite gender that someone would want to marry you. It's rather selfish, really, when you consider the words of John the Baptist: "Christ must become more, I must become less," as well as the warning in Song of Solomon "Do not awaken love until it so desires."
Shouldn't our primary goal be to glorify Christ and not search for earthly shortcuts to fulfilling our desires? Finding a spouse is not like science nor business which have clear procedures or even guidelines. Hearts can be broken, and therefore authentic, Christlike love must take precedence. I don't mean to sound accusing, but this book borders close to the type of manipulation that the world cleverly calls "seduction."
My brother humorously commented that the book also tries to turn you into a "poser." This happens when 'forcing yourself' to be more masculine or feminine in order to entice the opposite sex. You have to ask: What kind of people are you trying to attract...people who are enticed by your masculinity/femininity or people who are excited about you for who truly are? I personally would rather a lady be attracted to me for my fruits of the spirit than my looks or personality.
It is a combination of both action and faith that is important. Faith to set the situations up. Action to knock em down
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In 1980 Michael Weiner saw the publication of Weiner's Herbal: The Guide to Herb Medicine, which states the medical benefits of marijuana [7]. However he recently stated that the chemicals in marijuana make it too dangerous to be used as medicine. On his program, he strongly cautions against the recreational use of marijuana, occasionally devoting his show to "marijuana horror stories" and its claimed potential to ruin lives. He has authored a number of other books on various herbal medicine topics under this name. More recently, Savage's books are political in nature and published by WND Books, a partnership between the conservative website WorldNetDaily and Thomas Nelson, a publisher of Christian books.
In January 2003 he published The Savage Nation: Saving America from the Liberal Assault on Our Borders, Language and Culture, his first book under the pseudonym Michael Savage. The book quickly reached the top of the New York Times bestseller list earning Savage, as noted above, a commentary show on MSNBC. The controversial book directs attacks at "media bias", the "dominating culture of 'she-ocracy'", gays, and liberals.
Critics have faulted Savage for making a number of assertions in the book that he often fails to substantiate with facts or resources. Exacerbating this condition is the fact that the book itself has no index. The book is divided into two- to four-page sections, many of which are near-exact replicas to columns he published on the conservative site NewsMax.com.
In January 2004, Savage published his second political book, The Enemy Within: Saving America from the Liberal Assault on Our Schools, Faith, and Military. His newest book, Liberalism is a Mental Disorder was released on April 12, 2005. Both of these books contained citations of nearly every assertion made, contrary to "The Savage Nation."
In January 2006, Savage announced that he would be releasing a new book, The Political Zoo, in mid-March. [8] The book will contain satirical profiles and cartoons of different people in politics as animals in the "Political Zoo" including one of Savage himself, who will be portrayed as the zookeeper. Savage has remarked that the book will be "easier to digest" than his previous political books.
Books as Michael Weiner
Plant a Tree, New York : Collier Books, 1975
Bugs in Peanut Butter, Boston : Little, Brown, 1976.
Man's Useful Plants, New York: Macmillan. 1976.
Earth Medicine, Earth Food, New York : Macmillan Pub. Co., 1980.
The way of the skeptical nutritionist, New York : Macmillan, 1981.
Nutrition Against Aging, Bantam books, 1983.
Secrets of Fijian Medicine, Quantum Books, 1983.
"Vital Signs", Avant Books, 1983
Getting Off Cocaine, Avon Books, 1984.
Maximum Immunity, Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 1986.
Reducing the risk of Alzheimer's, New York : Stein and Day, 1987.
The Complete Book of Homeopathy, Garden City Park, N.Y. : Avery Pub., 1989.
The Herbal Bible, San Rafael, CA : Quantum Books, 1992.
Healing children naturally, San Rafael, CA : Quantum Books, 1993.
Herbs that heal : prescription for herbal healing, Mill Valley, CA : Quantum Books, 1994.
The Antioxidant Cookbook, Mill Valley, CA : Quantum Books, 1995.
[edit]
Books as Michael Savage
The Savage Nation, WND Books, 2003.
The Enemy within, Nelson Current, 2004.
Liberalism is a Mental Disorder, Nelson Current, 2005.
The Political Zoo, Nelson Current, 2006.
Michael Alan Weiner was born to a Russian Jewish family [1] in the borough of The Bronx in New York City. Michael Savage earned a Bachelor's from Queens College in education and sociology. He taught high school for several years in New York City. Following that, he earned two Master's degrees in ethnobotany and anthropology from the University of Hawaii. He then received a Ph.D. in nutritional ethnomedicine in 1978 from the University of California, Berkeley. His thesis was titled Nutritional Ethnomedicine in Fiji. Savage spent many years researching botany in the South Pacific, and has a background in alternative medicine. He has stated he was a liberal at one time and never served in the military.
Weiner was a friend of openly gay beat poet Allen Ginsberg, offering to arrange readings for Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti in 1972. [2] Some of his letters to Ginsberg are held in Ginsberg's archives and one of those letters describes an encounter with a young Fijian man. [3] Savage denies writing the letter and called it part of a "smear campaign" by "gay fascists". [4] Savage also once posed naked for a photograph with Ginsberg while swimming in Fiji. [5] Ferlinghetti views Weiner's reincarnation as Michael Savage as "total opportunism," the crowning achievement of someone who was "always looking to make a fast buck" and "always trying to think up new schemes to get famous."
Michael Savage began his radio career in 1992 on San Francisco's #1 news/talk radio station KGO, first doing fill in work for other hosts, then getting his own show on the weekend. Two years later he was given a weekday show on KGO's sister station KSFO where he shared airtime with a liberal talk show host. He chose his "nom de voix" in "the Tonga Islands in the 1960s. I stumbled upon the name of a [19th-century] shipwreck who was locally infamous -Charles Savage. His exploits were legendary," he said. "So the name was bouncing around in my head." At the time, his slogan was "To the right of Rush, and to the left of God." On January 1, 1995 he was given his own show during the drive-time hours. The show quickly became a local hit. In 1999, he came to the attention of the Talk Radio Network.
On January 17, 2000 he started doing an additional two hours of radio which was broadcast nationally. For the next eight months, Savage would spend a total of five hours a day just talking. His national experiment was a success, and on September 21, 2000, he stopped doing separate shows, beginning a full three-hour national show. After just one year, he was in 150 markets. By 2003, he was in over 200 markets and is currently the No. 3 radio host in the United States.
In June 2003, he had a salary dispute with his flagship station KSFO who refused to renegotiate his contract. He was off the air for three weeks. On July 1, 2003 he began his show on a different station: KNEW in San Francisco. Since that dispute, he speaks badly of KSFO and of "Vanity or Pretty Boy" Sean Hannity, whose show replaced his on the station. Savage also speaks pejoratively when referencing his fellow talk radio hosts or individuals with whom he disagrees (see List of Michael Savage neologisms).
As of 2005, Savage has between 8 million and 10 million listeners per week. This makes his show the third most widely listened to broadcast in the United States.
In 1996 he applied to be a dean at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism. When he was not granted an interview due to lack of qualifications--less than two years of experience in radio, with a Ph.D. in epidemiology and nutrition science--Savage filed a discrimination lawsuit that was eventually dismissed. The position instead went to China scholar Orville Schell who, according to Weiner, was less qualified than himself.
Savage was hired by MSNBC to do a one-hour show starting March 8, 2003. On July 7, a mere four months later, he was fired for making anti-gay remarks in response to a caller, later identified as prank caller "East Coast Bob."
Savage was doing an "Airline Horror Stories" piece, when Bob called into his show to talk about undercover security guards smoking in the bathroom. His next words were "Half hour into the flight, I need to suggest that Don and Mike should take your show so you can go to the dentist because your teeth are really bad". The words after "should" were bleeped out by a MSNBC exec, which would make one believe that the caller was actually making lewd comments about Savage's sexual orientation. Savage asked if he was a "sodomite", to which the caller answered "yes" . Savage then said to the caller: "Oh, so you're one of those sodomites. You should only get AIDS and die, you pig, how's that? Why don't you see if you can sue me, you pig. You got nothing better to do than to put me down, you piece of garbage, you got nothing better to do today, go eat a sausage and choke on it. Get trichinosis. Now do we have another nice caller here who's busy because he didn't have a nice night in the bathhouse who's angry at me today? Put another, put another sodomite on....no more calls? I don't care about these bums, they mean nothing to me. They're all sausages." [6]
Before the show was canceled, MSNBC was replaying his show during primetime hours Saturday night; many believe the show would have been canceled even without his comments, and that MSNBC was simply looking for an excuse to dump the program due to pressure from special interest groups. Others point out that MSNBC has had poor programming and ratings performance for a long time and that many talk shows of all different political stripes have come and gone quickly on the network.
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This dictionary is just another long-winded, pretentious, unreadable, high-brow attempt to legitimize anthropology. The authors of each definition are more concerned with impressing their peers than giving the average person clear insight to cultural anthropology. If you are struggling through a cultural anthropology class, and are looking for a dictionary with clear definitions, forget this book
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Thriller and mystery readers like to guess along with our protagonists when we're reading a story. We like to look for clues in what we've read to help us unravel the plot, and find out who did it and why the crime was done.
John Grisham cheats us out of that fun. The villian of this book isn't introduced until there less than 75 pages left, which means that when you get that far, you realize that everything you read before then wasn't valid. To have some red herrings in a thriller is fine, but to have 300 pages of chases and red herrings? That's bad.
Read another thriller instead of this one, one that plays by the rules
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I finished it because a friend recommended it, but had she not, I would have quit after page 20. I wasn't interested in the story or writing. I didn't find the story grotesque; I've read a lot worse dealing with the various topics in this book, but I just didn't find the protagonist very interesting. He went a bit nutty at the end and it is understandable given the situation. We learn about why he had to stick so tenaciously to his religious beliefs, to redeem himself. His actions didn't seem out of line, either during the war or during the plague, given his dire predicament and previous behaviors and experiences. I know this is a great example of a book written in second person, and perhaps for that it is worth reading. I wouldn't pick it up for enjoyment or leisure
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This book is best used for viewing its selection of Master Drawings many of which are superb. However, its written text is filled with multitudes of factual errors and pseudo-intellectualizations. It should be noted that this book was not written by Hale; it was written by one of his students and lacks the quality of Hale's classic, "Drawing Lessons from the Great Masters." Instead, this book loses itself in unimportant, erroneous anatomical minutia which will baffle, confuse, frustrate and ultimatly demoralize the motivated reader. It greatly misses the mark in both clarity and presentation of important anatomical theory
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The author dwells too much on knife fighting rather than the knives. I found the book to be a disappointment
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IM not sure where to begin with this review, its not that the book was poorly written, quite the opposite it was a very good piece but it lacked any sort of luster or appeal. It was quite infact extremely boring, by page 300 I could not wait for it to be over and this is weird because up to this point I have LOVED the gunslinger series, they were all very good from front to back. There is way, way, to much about Susanah and the whole thing about her having this baby and it dragged and draged, maybe this series is showing its age im not sure but one thing is for sure it was no Wastelands or Wizzard and Glass. It was a far fetch from those titles and it had barely any excitement. It got to the point where I had to try very hard to pay attention and often I would find I had read a page and not remebered what it was about and had to read it again. Im giving this book 2 out of 5, very poor story line, poor plot however it was written well I can only hope that the next book is better, cmon King give me the feeling Wastelands did, BLOWN AWAY!! rather than tired and exhausted
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What a disjointed mess, talk about cashing in on fame. All he did here was take a bunch of columns he wrote in the paper and called it a book. I could have done better with the letter to the editor section of the paper. I was not that enamored with Liar's Poker and this book has done it for me with this author. It was just that the articles were not that relevant any more and his writing is not that good
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The book was long and boring. To many and way to much descriptive details. I regret ever purchasing the book. Had to really fight with my self to finish the book. I'm glad it's over
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I picked this up because it's considered a classic and I knew it had been made into a movie. I tend to think that if a book is made into a movie, then the book must be pretty good. Not so with Howard's End. The plot in Howard's End doesn't progress much outside of an early death and later marraige. You have to have some interest in the characters, but they just weren't very believeable. None of characters convinced me that they could be people from the real world. I kept waiting for someone to say anything that might border on being interesting, but everyone babbles on and on about nothing of any substance. The story is clearly dated and doesn't hold up well so many years later. Living in today's world, it's hard to understand what attracted Margaret to Henry. There definately is an audience for this book. I'm just not a part of it
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Ch.9 - Heated Moments - graphic details of a girl starting her period. Writing makes it seem that a girl's period is something wrong
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I had to buy this book for a class. It is an extremely boring read and I struggle to keep myself awake while reading it (as does the rest of the class I am told). It does tell you about Dreamweaver though and I suppose that is its purpose. One thing that I do not like is the way the author is constantly bashing Internet Explorer and other isp's. His personal opinions are a real turn-off and unnecessary
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Subsets and Splits