Reviews Books

It should be mandatory for every M.B.A. student in the world.

For nearly half a century Peter Ferdinand Drucker (1909- ) has inspired and educated managers-and influenced the nature of business-with his landmark articles in the Harvard Business Review. Here, gathered together and framed by a thoughtful introduction from the Review's editor Nan Stone, is a priceless collection of his most significant work.

One of our leading thinkers on the practice and study of management, Drucker has sought out, identified, and examined the most important issues confronting managers, from corporate strategy to management style to social change. Through his unique lens, this volume gives us the rare opportunity to trace the evolution of the great shifts in our workplaces, and to understand more clearly the role of managers in the ongoing effort to balance change with continuity.

Now, these important articles and essays are strategically presented here to address two unifying themes: the first examines "The Manager's Responsibilities" while the second investigates "The Executive's World". Accompanied by an interview with Peter Drucker on "The Post-Capitalist Executive", as well as a thought-provoking preface by Peter Drucker himself, a complete picture of management theory and practice emerges, both as it was and as it will be.

Infused with a perspective that holds new relevance today, these essays represent Drucker at his best: direct, wise and challenging. Peter Drucker on the Profession of Management, sure to be studied, debated, and enjoyed by everyone concerned with management, everyone concerned with management, is a timely offering from one of the most respected and prolific authors to appear in the Harvard Business Review.

At 90, Peter Drucker is, by all accounts, the most enduring management thinker of our time. Born in Vienna, educated in Austria and England, he has worked since 1937 in the United States, first as an economist for a group of British banks and insurance companies, and later as a management consultant to several leading companies. Drucker has since had a distinguished career as a teacher, including more than twenty years as Professor of Management at the Graduate Business School of New York University. Since 1971 he has been Marie Rankin Clarke Professor of Social Science and Management at the Peter F. Drucker Graduate School of Management, Claremont Graduate University in California, where he still teaches in the fields of management and business policy. He is the founder of The Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management, and has counseled numerous governments, public service institutions, and major corporations.

Drucker is a writer, teacher, and consultant with a long-term business perspective second to none. His twenty-nine previous books have been published in more than twenty languages and span sixty years of modern history beginning with The End of Economic Man (1939) and Managing in a Time of Great Change; Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices; Innovation and Entrepreneurship; The Effective Executive; Managing for Results and The Practice of Management. Nan Stone is the editor of the Harvard Business Review.

Peter Drucker has 60 years of experience teaching and writing about management. This collection of essays, first published in Harvard Business Review, outline Drucker's views on managerial responsibility. Among other things, this book also includes his insights on making more effective decisions, improving staffing choices, locating innovative opportunities, and aligning your theory of business.

Drucker outlines the five essential management principles:

1. Management is about human beings. Your task as a manager is to make people capable of working together.
2. Management is embedded in culture. You must be able to use parts of your history, tradition and culture as building blocks for a common corporate culture.
3. Management is responsible for growing an organization. Integrate training and development into your organization at all levels.
4. Use yardsticks like market standing, innovation, productivity, human development, quality and financial results to measure and improve performance.
5. Look for results outside of your company, in the products and services you deliver, not relative to internal processes within the company.

Drucker also outlines six steps to guide decision-making:

1. Classify the problem. Is the problem unique to your company, or the beginning of a more general problem?
2. Define the problem. Make sure the definition explains all the observable facts.
3. Define the boundary conditions, like objectives or goals, that your decision must satisfy. When the conditions change, your decision must change with them.
4. Decide. Usually you will have to compromise eventually. Decide what is right.
5. Take action. Make sure your employees know what the decision involves, and who is expected to do what.
6. Get feedback. Gather information on the effectiveness of your decision. Make sure your decision is still relevant to current conditions.

This is one of the most, thought provoking books, I've read this year. In the first part of the book, Business philopher, Peter Drucker protrays and verbally the business model of today, and highlights the necessary interactions of managers with the model. In the second part of the book, Drucker breaks away and reveals a series of startling revelations about today's business.

The theory of business is what Drucker, defines as "what a company gets paid for." Drucker states when big companies get in trouble they blame "complacency, arrogance, mammoth bureacracies", as a plausible explanations. However, the problem's root causes are rarely identified and the prevously stated explanations are rarely right. Most companies fail, to perform well, at what they get paid for.

Drucker defines the parts of the business environment, as: environment (society and its structure and the market), mission (customer ), (core competencies) and technology. Why is this important? The assumptions about environment, mission, and core competencies must fit together. Drucker drives home the point by contrasting the sucess of non-profit organizations with profit organizations, stating we can learn from the success of non-profit organizations, namely: well define mission, lack of deep management hierarchy, individual responsiblity, a deep understand of individual roles and purposes, and cohension between expectations and results. Secondly, the theory of business must be known and understood through out the business. Drucker stresses the importance of learning from the non-customer. And Lastly, the theory of business must be tested constantly.

The Effective Decision process involves the follow sequence of steps: 1. Classify the problem 2. Define the problem 3. Specify the answer to the problem 4. Decide what is right rather than what is acceptable 5. Build into the decision the action to carry it out 6. and test the validity and effectiviness of the decision against the actual course of events. This is an high level sketch outlining a model for effective decision.

Drucker provides two methods, to help make, people decisions. The two creative approaches are: determine if the right people has right qualifications, perceptions, and talents; and make sure the individual understands the job. The first approaches advocates careful selection of the individual, by determining, how well the candidate fits the job assignment. The second approach measures the new manager's understanding of the job. The process requests, the new manager to write on paper, what they think will make them sucessful, in their job. Senior management reads the paper to determine, if the manager has grasped an understanding, of the job, and revalidates their decison about the individual being the right person, for the job.

The discipline of innovation encourages managers to separate the reasons for successful management, into two groups: systematic and non-systematic innovation. Both systematic and Non-systematic opportunies exist within an company or industry because of unexpected occurences, incongruties, process needs, and industry and market changes. Systematic innovation begins by analyizing the sources of opportunity. Innovation is perceptual and conceptual by definition and innovators must go out look, ask, and listen. Effective innovations start small. Small Innovations can lead to large implementations. Without innovation the company will go out of business. Innovation keeps a company competitive in the market and capable of meeting customer needs.

Technology has created a great diversity of information. In order for a manager, to be effective, managers need to identify the information they need to effective perform their jobs.

The world is moving to a society of organizations. Companies are moving to global economies of scale. People interact with various organizations to achieve results. Because of this new organization theory, outsourcing is preferred when no direct management hierarchy exists to a Vice President. Outsourcing provides high skill specialist, management, and senior management. Companies are achieving better results organizationally by outsourcing business process where possible.

Management is responsible for creating the knowledge worker. Historically, significant increasing in productivity were the result of a management core build established. Management is responsible for building the skilled worker. Organizations are made up of individuals, who have a high degree of technical skill and knowledge. Information must be convert into knowledge and manager's communication ability dictates the level of effectiviness in using the skilled worker's knowledge. Organizations represent a network of specialists, rather than a strong command and control heirarchy. However, technology of itself does not increase productivity.

How do managers increase productivity? Managers increase productive by helping the knowledge worker to work smarter - not harder. Management creates the knowledge worker by empower them with specialized skills and knowledge. Productivity gaps are closed through training. Management must decide who gets trained. Training the right people increase the worker's capability, compensation, and productivity. Performance can only be achieved by the worker working smarter not harder. Only ten percent of the work is effectively and producing ninety percent of the productivity and profit. Thus, over ninety percent of the work is ineffective. It is management's responsibility to reduce this inefficiency. Drucker will later introduce his activity oriented decision model to help managers reduce the amount of inefficiency.

Managers are responsible for creating and maintaining their carreer path. Receiving a higher education degree and employment, in a large company does not guarentee retirement, with the company. Managers are responsible for designing and maintaining their career. Fragmentation of purpose and thought must be overcome to reduce confusion and losses. Knowledge workers must learn how to produce. This requires the knowledge work to remain current, with changes, in the business environment. Their contribution in large part depends on the knowledge workers ability to adapt and learn smarter ways to produce.

Activity Oriented Decision model prevents loses and failures. Activity Oriented decisions combine value analysis, risk analysis, quality analysis, and process analysis, into one. Decisions resulting from managers who follow the activity oriented decision model don't risk losing capital. The combination of the various information sources, associated with the activity oriented decision helps the manager understand the potential value of the venture, the potential value, the risks of failure, and the cost of modifying or implement new processes, and the long term affects on quality in the organization.

The activity oriented decision model is a conceptually definition and the practical discipline proposed exciting possiblities. Activies are analyzed, defined, and sequenced. Resources are allocated to the activity. The activity outcomes are measured to determine, if they are meeting requirements. Managers weight the risks by asking "what are the benefits of the activity?","What are the fallout impacts for failure to implement the activity?", and "what are the impacts to the organization long term by implementing the activity?"

Analysis of the process, results in time and budget allocation estimates. Schedules provide time lines and sequences linked to a resources. Managers must coordination various organizations to gain access to a resource. A resource represents a individual in a specialize field of knowledge. Communication and coordination are necessary to effectively manage various resources, so each individual understands, what is expected and what to produce. Budgets and time provide the boundary of the activity problem. Its possible to have a budget or schedule which exceeds the boundary of the problem, making the activity unfeasible. To avoid this problem, the manager must provide clear objectives to be developed and maintained. The objectives scope must stay within a predefined problem boundary.

Peter F. Drucker is known as the "management guru's management guru". The articles in this book explain the reason. Each article is a landmark in the field of management.

In the preface Drucker shows why he has become so famous. He shows his strength of recognising trends and how these trends will affect business, people, and society. This preface is followed by a short introduction from the editor.

The book consists of two Parts, The Manager's Responsibilities and The Executive's World, with each consisting of 6 Harvard Business Review-articles (out of 32 articles and growing). The book also includes an interesting preface, an introduction by Harvard Business Review-editor Nan Stone, and an interview with Peter Drucker.

In Part I - The Manager's Responsibilities, the articles discuss the managerial responsibilities of the manager, although Drucker prefers the term "executive". The articles discuss general management such as the decision-making process, effective management, strategic management, and innovation.

Part II - The Executive's World, Drucker discusses the history of management, the transformation from the traditional command-and-control model to knowledge-based organizations, information technology, and non-profit management.

The book concludes with an interview with Peter Drucker, which is based on his 1995-book 'Post-Capitalist Society'.

The book deserves the five-star rating since each article is fantastic. Perhaps some of them overlap, but it is amazing that some of the articles written in the 1960s are still very valid today. Drucker's writing style is simple US-English.

Growing up in Iowa in the 70s, we didn't have the grindhouses movie theaters of NY nor did we have the drive-ins of the South. Being a b-movie fan at that time meant combing the TV Guide every week to find oddball movies, although if the title was not eye catching (e.g.-The Devil's Rain, Blue Sunshine), it might be missed. This book came out when I was 15, and although horror movie encyclopedias had been published in the past, this was the first really comprehensive tome on what is generally described now as "exploitation movies," "cult movies," or more recently, "grindhouse movies."

The term the author coined, "Psychotronic," became inclusive of not just horror movies, but also biker, blaxploitation, juvenile delinquency, drug, scare, softcore, and any other type of offbeat movie the author happened to fancy.

It was published at the very cusp of the VHS boom, when not only were video shops sprouting up all over the place, but electronic shops, supermarkets, and even convenience stores had huge video rental operations. Michael Weldon's movie guide gave an entire generation of b-movie buffs who did not live in NYC a glimpse into what was out there. This book became a bible to us given that it was first time in our lives that these movies were available to us thanks to the proliferation of VHS rental tapes.

The book is now 25 years out of date and younger audiences might not find it quite so useful (it doesn't list The Evil Dead-that's how old it is!), but on the plus side, there are many listings for movies from the early 80s and before that have disappeared, so it's difficult to write it off as irrelevant even now.

This tome makes one yearn for the good old days, long gone, of the drive-in movie of the 60's and 70's now replaced by video bins. B movie makers of those days- their names are legion - made an honest attempt to entertain their audiences with meagre resources and often more meagre talent(unlike exploitation film makers of today, whose direct to video releases are lazy and witless). Weldon chronicles this glorious time in a very generous compendium, chocked full of wonderful black and white stills and capsule reviews of the inane and the obscure, thw wild and the wonderful, the unbelievable and the unforgettable. A feast for the fan of offbeat cinema.

Absolutely indespensible guide to cult, sci-fi, horror and every other offbeat film genre written by people that understand subculture. Never ceases to amaze with the rare titles the Psychotronic folk somehow managed to track down and review years before we mere mortals knew these films existed. I refer to my copy at least once a week which should indicate how valuable a resource book this is to me.

I am the first to confess that not everyone spends their time wondering if they might like to watch Untamed Women tonight, or have an Ed Wood film festival, but I am one of them. Call me crazy (ahem!), but I like really bad old movies, especially the ones that try to scare/pander you. Perhaps I yearn for the time when showing a bit of cleavage was considered racy. So I nose around the discount rack looking for such gems as Mermaids of Tiburon or The Earth Dies Screaming. I come across a copy of Demonoid. Should I buy it or not? Comes the rescue the Psychotronic guide which safely guides me through these murky dark waters. It and its companion Video guide are essential for those who share my idea of fun, with reviews of 6000 screen gems, such as Curse at Cactus Creek and Robot Monster.

Perhaps my only objection is that the guide makes no pretense at being authoritative. For example, When a Stranger Calls is reivewed (favorably), but its sequel, When a Stranger Calls back, does not appear at all (and is arguably the better movie). There is also a smattering of "legitimate" film, such as Pursuit of the Graf Spee, and Polyester. No matter, all the films reviewed are, at the least, quirky, and there is a pretty good chance, at any rate, that the film you seek is reviewed. If not, you will have great fun just looking for it.

My only grief is that the concordance is limited to an index. After all, what more important thing could there be than a filmography of Barbara Steele, the geratest actress that ever lived?

These things aside, I recommend this without hesitation. There are other books listing gore/sleeze/exploitation films, but you will find none better.

The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film consists of plot summaries of the kind of movies that come on at 3 am. No not porn - get your mind out of that gutter. Weldon chronicles 50's movies with huge mutant animals from the old nuclear test site, vampires, werewolves and anything with killer androids.

Each movie has a plot summary and many have publicity stills or small news articles about the film culled from Weldons home collection. The introduction includes a section on the psychotronic film zine which Weldon ran. The zine included a listing of which weird movies were on that week and included plot summaries of said movies. What I found entertaining about this section was Weldons description of the difficulties getting his girlfriend to xerox the copies on the office copy machine when no one was looking. This book grew out of that zine.

When it was published in the early 80's this book would have been a great idea for any fans of bad movies. It is still a good source for info about bad movies up through the 70's. (I checked it out of the library and kept it for a semester during which I investigated such classics as Doctor Goldboots and the Go-go Girls and found that it was pretty thorough in the bad movies department.) As Weldon points out it was very difficult to find information about the kinds of films covered here at the time when this was published. However with the internet and sites like badmovies.org and the ever handy Internet Movie Database it is possible to get the information elsewhere.

If you have an internet connection then don't bother with The Psychotronic Encyclodedia. If you like bad movies and don't have internet access then this is a very useful reference for plot summaries and information on bad movies made prior to around 1980 and would be worth buying.

Arrived very promptly in perfect condition. great book for review. gives you need to knows for boards.

I would totally recommend this book to anyone who is going to be taking the ARRT registry. It's a great review from the x-ray program. A must have!!

It's not a good idea to spend time memorizing answers to questions. It is in your best interest to know the principles behind the answers, if you plan on passing the registry. This book is a fine condensed version of your 2 year program.

THIS IS A GREAT BOOK TO GET READY FOR THE TEST , AFTER BEING COUPLE YEARS OUT OF THE FIELD I USED THIS BOOK AND THE Q & A BOOK, AND I PASS WITH AN 85%. IT HAVE SOME MISTAKES BUT THEY ARE OBVIOUS.. ITS A VERYYYY GOOD BOOK !!

This book helped me pass the ARRT Exam. I haven't been in school for a couple of years...plus I went to school overseas. I had the old version of this book but I needed to buy the newer one. It lived up to it's title "Radiography PREP". This book together with the Lange Q&A - Radiography Examination were the only books I needed...now I'm a Registered RT.

This thin volume provides an excellent introduction to many of the most important supreme court cases that shape this country, and could be used as a guide for further readings on them. Each chapter review a specific topic (separation of church and state, discrimination, etc.), with important cases looking at different aspects of it. Highly recommended!

After seeing a 60 MINUTES interview with Judge Scalia recently I wanted to know more about the Supreme Court. This was one of the most interesting books I have read in years. I read it in just a few days and would highly recommend it to anyone. It talks about the evolution of the Supreme court and their most important decisons, decisions that effect us everyday. Also it is written in plain english so you do not need to be a lawyer to understand and enjoy it. Great book!

From Marbury v. Madison to Gore v. Bush, this book covers the most important cases in Supreme Court history. It's very clear and concise, an absolute delight to read.

Sure, you've heard of many of the cases in this book. But do you know what the legal underpinnings of "Roe vs. Wade" actually are? Do you know how the court derives its power?

I've been talking to everyone I know about this little gem, because it is so darn readable, and so relevant. Yesterday my local paper ran a story about filtering software the local library may soon install. And this morning I finished the book after reading about the cases that are directly tied to this course of action. So I can speak more intelligently about this issue, and I can read the paper with a more informed perspective.

Many of the cases are introduced by discussing a logical framework that parallels the facts of the case. The case is then introduced, and the arguments and reasoning that drove the court are discussed. Wow, that makes it sound really boring. But on the contrary, its a fun read and each chapter is short and encapsulated. Highly recommended.

I bought this as a gift, decided I'd better preview it first, and now I don't want to give it up. I'm ordering another one. Believe what the other 5-star reviewers have written.

I read this book and was both shocked, ticked and, well, amazed. A lot was just plain common sense. But a lot I would have never imagined. The bottom line is this is a must read for every person no matter what the age. I have showed it to a couple teachers and they were amazed at how easy it is for even a kid in school to get a criminal record that will haunt him for hte rest of his life. You will hear a lot of things you want to believe do not exist in the United States, but believe it! It does happen to good people, even what the author calls "Whitebread America". The book talks of how the way one dresses, talks, drives, walks and who they associate with can all contribute to their 'arrestibility'. This book is a no nonsense book on how to reduce the risk of ever getting a criminal record by a man who has been in law enforcement for a very long time. He pulls no punches and tells it like it is. He even touches on subjects like the 'pussification' of America and how the old ideal of 'innocent till proven guilty' has been replaced by 'guilty till proven innocent'. I don't care if you are a hip hop punk or a soccer mom. You NEED to read this book! It could save you from the true nightmare of an arrest record which could cause you problems from not being able to get a job to not being able to get credit to buy a new home. Did you know that you can end up with a criminal record for little more then being taken in for questioning and then just set free? Unbelievable right? But I personally know of a person who has had this happen and was denied a job because now he shows up as having a criminal record. Prospective employers could care less if you were guilty, just that in a check you show up with a record. Buy this book and read it if you value your rights.

This is an important book for everyone. It really shows how workings of the justice system are very much different than commonly supposed. It addition to valuable information for the individual in their dealing with the authorities it has some valuable sociological insights into how the legal system might be improved. The book gives the lie to the notion of 'innocent' until proven guilty.' If you are arrested the record stays out there to affect your life. It is the case that 'if you were arrested then you must be guilty of something.' ... I bought several copies and passed them out to my friends.

This is an essential guide for everyone--it doesn't matter what your previous encounters with law enforcement have been. Carson explains that in the world of criminal justice, it's all a numbers game: how many arrests can the beat cop make? how many tickets can he write? how many convictions can the prosecutor get? how can the city/county/state make money off the people who end up in the endless cycle of the justice system? (Don't believe me? Read Reason Magazine's story about Tracy Ingle. Unfortunately, most police officers are in the business of policing because they want to play cops and robbers; they aren't in it to help people.

The most eye opening part of this book was when he explains how someone can be inexorably caught in the "social services plantation," as he calls it:

Joe gets arrested for carrying a joint (or DUI, driving without a license, mouthing off to a cop, etcetera ad nauseum). Joe needs to have the financial resources, familial support, and a very understanding boss for the needed time off to make it to his court appearances, probation officer meetings, court ordered Narcotics/Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, and he needs to make it home from all these appointments in time because he's also ordered to complete in-home detention.

One day Joe's car breaks down on the way home. He calls a tow truck. After the tow truck drops the car off at the repair shop, he calls for a taxi to take him home. He gets home an hour later than he's allowed, and fully expects to hear from his probation officer, but he's sure the tow truck bill, repair shop bill, and receipt for the taxi are enough to prove he is telling the truth. Sure enough, he gets a call, and he goes about explaining the situation. A few short minutes later, the police show up and arrest him for violating his probation. The probation officer tells him that the GPS device Joe is required to carry shows him being in the liquor store next to the repair shop, and any drinking is prohibited on probation. Joe insists he was only in the repair shop, but the probation officer doesn't believe him, and that's all that is required to put Joe in jail.

Now Joe, the kid arrested for carrying a joint in his pocket, is a part of the local jail population for the next month. Career destroyed, family starting to have enough of Joe's getting in trouble, and financially buried by the court costs, the cost of the in-home detention, the cost of probation, and the cost of missing work for the required appointments throughout the day, Joe gives up on living a "proper life" and gets mixed up with illegal activities in the jail, and the process continues. All that from an arrest for a non-violent legal infraction.

I know the above is a long anecdote, but it's a perfect illustration of one part of Carson's subtitle: "How Even a Single Arrest Could Ruin Your Life."

The only part that seems a little bit paranoid in this book is when Carson demonstrates how to make an arrest-proof car, complete with filling the glove box with expanding foam and super gluing the trunk shut. That's a bit much, but still understandable.

The best part of the book are the "Creds" he offers: Sheets of paper that have all the pertinent information a cop would ask for, along with a statement that your lawyer has told you not to say anything in those situations. That's worth the price of the book alone. I'm putting my Creds together right now.

Highly recommended for everyone--especially those in the most arrestable demographic: young, poor, minority males.

This is a tremendous book and is worth every penny because the people it will save from jail are not the true criminals (who ought to be there because that protects the rest of us) but those who just do dumb things like mouth off to cops. As the author says, jail is full of people who are there principally because a policeman didn't like the attitude they projected.

However, he could have saved even more people from jail if he had been more forthcoming and graphic about what happens there. The jail population would drop by half if people new exactly what takes place (courtesy of their fellow prisoners) behind bars. As a former police officer and current practicing criminal attorney, he is most definitely well aware of the unspeakable horrors awaiting both males and females in jail.

Of the How To" books, this one may be the most important one that you will every read.

Author Dale C. Carson is a former Florida street cop and FBI agent. He is presently a practicing criminal defense attorney in Jacksonville, Florida. As such, he is in a perfect position to reveal the brutal truth about how police work, their methods, dirty tricks, and motivations. He stresses that cops do not receive promotions or accolades for keeping the peace, or resolving disputes by negotiation, but are evaluated and promoted strictly on the number of citations issued and arrests made, especially felony arrests.

He goes on go to explain how easy it is for *anyone* to get arrested, a subtitle of the book. Most non-criminal "upstanding" citizens" can inadvertently become caught up in the criminal justice "plantation," to use a word coined in the book. Arrest records can have serious consequences, even if the charges are subsequently dismissed, not pressed, or you are acquitted. Such an arrest will doom you (especially young people) to a lifetime of low paid jobs, since many employers will not hire anybody with an arrest record, regardless of the judicial outcome or merit of the arrest. This is particularly dangerous in the age of electronic information, where records can last indefinitely. Before the computer age, written records often got lost with age. Not so now.

So the only practical approach is a defensive/preventive/proactive one. Sadly, most people with not read this book until it is too late, if at all. The "clueless" people, who don't even understand the basics of the system, but are either petty criminals or non-criminals, because in their addition to their lack of ability to keep court dates (they do not own or do not use calendars or alarm clocks), frequently turn minor charges to major ones by failure to appear and other add-on charges. Probably most of them are not even literate enough to understand the simple advice in the book.

This book explains how to keep from being sucked into the system. Once you are, it will be very expensive to get out, if it is possible at all. Numerous parasites in the criminal justice system, including cops, lawyers, prosecutors, jailers, social workers, psychologists, have a big interest in perpetuating the system. The most important battle to be won is for custody of your body - remember, cops are visually oriented predators, whose main motivation is to arrest you and take custody of your body.

Buy this book BEFORE you get sucked into the system, and save a lot of money and heartache. As noted by the author, if you are a real, habitual, or big time criminal, this book will not be of much use to you - you will eventually be residing at the "Graybar Hotel" sooner or later. This book, however, is a must read for the non-criminal, petty criminal, or "victimless" criminal, or just for anybody that is naive about a dangerous, unforgiving system, in which ANYONE can inadvertently be caught up in for a momentary lapse of judgment.

I visited Budapest several times from 1997 through 2001 and am very glad I purchased this guidebook at a bookstore in that city (and I'm happy I still have the copy, especially considering the prices people are asking for it these days). It stands apart from all the other travel guidebooks I know -- Andras Török's humor, literary flourishes and, above all, in-depth knowledge of his native city make it delightful reading even if you're not in Budapest, but the author never forgets that he's writing for travelers whose time in the Hungarian capital is likely limited and who are therefore keen to make the best use of that time. The detailed walking-tour maps are the best of their kind I've ever seen, and the short articles on such topics as the local language and viticulture further enrich the reading experience. Budapest has changed so much over the past six years, however, that I'd recommend obtaining the latest edition (published in 2007 by Park Könyvkiadó) -- and since it's nearly impossible to obtain outside of Hungary at this writing unless you're OK with paying ridiculous shipping fees, I'd recommend buying a copy as soon as you arrive in the marvelous city of Budapest.

We lived in Hungary for one year and used this guide for our weekend trips. Our good Hungarian friends gave it to us. Torok gives you a glorious, historic, poignant trip through this powerful city. Good to read and take the tours, even if you do it from your couch.

I am an ex-pat living here in Budapest. We run a small B and B called BudaBaB, so when we found this book, we bought and lend it to each guest to read. Although we have been here for almost five years, the book is a delightful read that provides interesting facts and information that we would never have learned otherwise. Torok writes with humor and a deep sense of love for his city. It has opened our hearts again and again to a city that we have loved living in already. It just makes it all the richer.

Ryan James

As a true city-lover, I found this book invaluable. Not only will you learn what it is you're looking at, but why you should care, and what makes it interesting. The friendly narrative style is truly entertaining, and all the recommendations are spot-on. It's full of enlightening sidebars by a variety of cultural figures, including "Directors Picks" for some of the major museums. Other guidebooks to Budapest don't do the city justice, but this is the book I wish I could write about my big-city hometown. I completely empathize with Mr. Torok's passion for Budapest--large cities can be just as nurturing and familiar as a small town, particularly when it's your own. If you love exploring cities, and trying your best to unearth their individual personalities (suspecting that it's impossible, but being driven to at least scratch the surface), this book is a must. My only regret was that I only found this book while I was there and already half-way through my visit.

I came across this little gem in a small bookstore while strolling down Andrassy Ut. in Budapest. It's essentially a loving and learned essay on the city slyly disguised as a guidebook. Of course he's got the requisite walking maps, addresses and practical information, but what he really does is to capture the soul of the city and its denizens, past and present. It's clear that his evocative observations and opinions, laced with wit and candor could only have come from one clever guy who's truly lived the life in Budapest. You'll read every page of this book as though it were a novel.

A repressive shadow looms over the destiny of these men of all age, beliefs, and ranks ... insidious terror creeps into those innocent minds and their lives ends before they know it or before their hearts stopped beating. Some vainly fight back, some don't, but all are hopeless.
The implacable and revengeful wave of the Soviet rotten bureaucracy destroys the life of innocent men. When tyranny and deception shutters the greatest hope of and for humanity, one ought to question if it had to be that way.

I can only echo the five star reviews already on this list. I first read Arthur Koestler's "Darkness at Noon" 40 years ago and it made a profound impression on me. I re-read it this year for a book club and still found it powerful if somewhat dated. "The Case of Comrade Tulayev" is a greater book. I have read a fair amount about the early Soviet Union, including Stephen Cohen's brilliant biography of Nicholas Bukharin and Bukharin's own fiction written in prison. Victor Serge ranks at the very top of European writers. No one who is the least interested in this era can afford not to have read him. He is the equal of Vassily Grossman, who's "Life and Fate" is also essential 20th century testimony.

Serge penetrates in the most vivid manner the society in which the purges took place and the outward behavior and inner workings of the players' minds and their rationalizing philosophy. Highest possible praise for one of the heros of modern Russia and a truly great writer.

To begin with, Victor Serge (1890-1947) is an anomaly. He is a Russian revolutionary and political agitator who just happened to be born in Belgium and who wrote most of his books in French. He is not widely read today because most of his books fall under the heading of politics, yet he wrote seven novels of which THE CASE OF COMRADE TULAYEV is perhaps the best known. He comes from a family of socialists, one of whom was involved in the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881. During the Russian Revolution, he took part in the siege of Petrograd and knew Lenin personally. (His wife was one of Lenin's stenographers.) He ran afoul of Stalin, who had him arrested for being a Trotsykite. After years of imprisonment, he was one of the few writers ever released by Stalin in response to international pressure from André Gide and other European cultural figures. Later, he was also "excommunicated" by the exiled Leon Trotsky as an anarchist. Always on the edge of poverty and now on the outs with the Communist Party in all its many flavors, he wound up in Mexico after Trotsky's assassination and worked on a biography of the slain leader. In the end, the high altitude proved too much for his heart, and he died in 1947 while in the back seat of a Mexico City taxicab.

THE CASE OF COMRADE TULAYEV has been reprinted in the excellent Willard R. Trask translation by New York Review Books, with an introduction by Susan Sontag. Although there have been other novels about Stalin's purges of the 1930s--most notably Arthur Koestler's DARKNESS AT NOON--nothing comes close to Serge's treatment. His story begins with two bachelors in Moscow who share adjacent rooms in an apartment building. On a sudden whim, one of them, the fusty Romachkin, buys a pistol and takes to carrying it around on his nocturnal rambles through the city. One day, just outside the Kremlin, he is shocked to find himself within a few feet of Stalin himself. Realizing that he could have taken out and shot the dictator before his bodyguards could intervene, he goes home and hands the gun over to his neighbor, Kostia, who also takes to walking around at night with it. When Kostia sees one of the more repressive members of the Central Committee, one Comrade Tulayev, getting out of a chauffeured limo to walk the extra few blocks for a clandestine tryst with his mistress, he shoots and kills him and gets away.

In the chapters that follow, the murder of Comrade Tulayev, whom we never really get to know, extends like a ripple through the upper levels of the Russian leadership. It is said that the character of Tulayev was inspired by Sergei Kirov, who was reportedly murdered at the instigation of Stalin. As in the case with Kirov, Stalin puts unrelenting pressure on his political bosses to find the culprit or culprits, even if they have to manufacture them:

"The case ramified in every direction, linked itself to hundreds of others, mingled with them, disappeared in them, re-emerged like a dangerous little blue flame from under fire-blackened ruins. The examiners herded along a motley crew of prisoners, all exhausted, all desperate, all despairing, all innocent in the old legal meaning of the word, all suspect and guilty in many ways; but it was in vain that the examiners herded them along, the examiners always ended up in some fantastic impasse."

Each of the major figures thus framed gets a chapter to himself in Serge's novel. Some of these chapters, such as the ones on party boss Artyem Makeyev ("To Build Is to Perish") and the character known only as Deportee Ryzhik ("The Brink of Nothing"), almost rise to the level of poetry. Makeyev is one of those talentless people who rise to the top through sheer consistency and brute strength. One day, he is visited by an old comrade, who for the first time plants the seeds of doubt in his friend's mind:

"Artyemich, I have been thinking things over. Our plans are 50 to 60 percent impossible to carry out. To carry them out to the extent of the remaining 40 per cent, the real wages of the working class will have to be reduced below the level they reached under the Imperial Government [i..e., the Tsar]--far below the present level even in backward capitalist countries... Have you thought about that? I fear not. In six months at most, we will have to declare war on the peasants and begin shooting them down--as sure as two and two makes four...."

As he goes backstage at a Moscow theater, Makeyev is picked up by the security services and whisked off, uncomprehending.

At the beginning of his chapter, Ryzhik is a prisoner in exile in a tiny hamlet in a godforsaken part of Siberia:

"Incomparable dawns rose for Ryzhik from the profound indifference of desert lands. He lived in the last of the five houses which made up the hamlet of Dyra (Dirty Hole), at the junction of two icy rivers lost in solitude. The houses were built of unhewn logs which had come down in the spring drives. The landscape had neither bounds nor landmarks. At first, when he still wrote letters, Ryzhik had named the place the Brink of Nothing ... He felt that he was at the extreme limit of the human world, at the very verge of an immense tomb. Most of the letters he wrote never reached any destination, of course, and none came from anywhere. To write from here was to shout into the emptiness which he sometimes did, to hear his own voice...."

Even so, the long arm of Stalin's prosecutors reaches him as a possible person to frame for the Tulayev murder, and he is whisked off to Moscow. He escapes having to admit his guilt only by cleverly going on a hunger strike unknown to the guards. He slowly feeds all his meals to the toilet until he is too weak to confess to anything and escapes further interrogation by his suicide.

In the end, three of Stalin's former associates are framed and executed. After a candid confrontation with the whimsical Stalin, one suspect is assigned to supervise a gold extraction operation in Siberia. As in the French Revolution, even the prosecutors and their stooges are picked off one by one and ground up in the mills of what passed for justice during those perilous times.

You will not find Victor Serge filed under Russian literature. You will not find him under French literature. You are not likely to find him at all unless you are extraordinarily fortunate. Reading The Case of Comrade Tulayev has whetted my appetite to hunt down other works by this most elusive of writers.

A voracious reader I thought I finished the Russian classics when I completed Cancer Ward and the First Circle having devoured Crime and Punishment and War and Peace years before. Not so . Victor Serge has it all :the prose of Tolstoy, the impending doom of Dosteyesky and the currency of the Stalin era. Don't miss this one. FPB Ann Arbor

This book is amazing for its ability to communicate the intimate thoughts of the characters and employ beautiful prose to describe the physical settings in which the action takes place, without abandoning the larger narrative. I loved it and would recommend it to anyone with an interest in Soviet history or literature. I read it after reading several other books on the period, and felt that they were an excellent preparation for this one (The Unquiet Ghost - Hochschild, Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar - Montefiore, The Gulage Archipeligo), but even without the background this is a fantastic read.

This was a very good read, masterfully told and researched. This is the only book that tells the COMPLETE history of indie movies. Highly recommended.

This book blew me away. I love the way it covers the whole spectrum of indie film, not just "art" but "exploitation" as well. The story of how these films came to be against great odds makes for great reading. I learned something knew on every page. Highly recommended for fans of non-Hollywood films.

This was a great read. Very well-written. It covered more than any other film book. I especially liked the exploitation stuff and how it mixed with art films: the yin and yang of indie cinema.

This is the best book ever written on independent film. I wish I could give it move than 5 stars, because Celluloid Mavericks is a pure pleasure to read: witty, informative and always extremely entertaining. No other book comes close to its breadth and detail, especially in regards to the previously uncharted territory between 1896 and 1960. This is my all-time favorite film book, well deserving of its many raves reviews.

from the New York Press 3-29-2000 - copyright Matt Zoller Seitz

Merritt's book covers a century's worth of off-center cinema, including 1890s nickelodeons, 1940s chitlin-circuit black films, Sam Fuller's genre-busting work in the 50s and 60s, blaxploitation and hardcore porn in the 70s and the Sundance wave of the 80s and 90s. The central idea of free spirits bucking the system unifies waht might have been a too-broad historical text, and Merritt's tart wit enlivens the fact-packed narrative. His prose isn't merely amusing; it's lovingly polished, a real pleasure to read. He's honest enough to admit that most 70s blaxploitation films were garbabe, "rarely as much fun as their posters or soundtracks." He coins a wonderful new phrase to describe the hillbilly flicks that flooded rural drive-ins around the same time: "Whitezploitation." He describes Tom Laughlin's "Billy Jack" as a movie about pacifists who "come to worship a man of violence," and declares, "the real hoot is seeing the messiah take off his boots and kick the grins off rednecks."

This isn't one of those fuzzy, ruminative books where the author writes whatever strikes his fancy and crams it into a bulging thematic suitcase after the fact. The preface carefully defines "independent" to mean any movie "financed and produced completely autonomous of all studios," and "semi-indie" as a movie that received studio funding at some point. The definitions cast certain well-known American films in a fresh light. I didn't know, for example, that the Oscar-winning "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" didn't get a dime's worth of funding from any studio.

Chapter to chapter and page for page, "Celluloid Mavericks" is an indespensable book, as entertaining as it is informed.

It's Friday night, you're tired after a long work week, and you're wandering the aisles at Blockbuster looking for a good family film. No need to go through the brain damage of reading millions of obscure DVD sleeves when you have Michael Booth's fine book, which recommends some little-noticed but still-great films appropriate for the schoolkids in your house. Screenit.com is OK if you have a specific idea for a rentable movie, but Booth's book is much better when you need recommendations (and for the fun writing, too).

This book is both helpful and enjoyable to read. The commentary addresses its audience with insight and intelligence. Best Family Films has been really helpful - particularly with concerns on the wide range of whether PG-13 movies are more of a PG or an R rating. This book has taken away parental angst.

Booth has a great feel for which movies work for which audience/age group. His recommendations have been 100% when selecting movies for our family.

Michael Booth is the thinking person's alternative to that other Michael (Medved) who professes an interest in family films. Booth's reviews are informative, helpful, witty, and a real pleasure to read. Highly recommended!

This guide's succinct reviews are really useful. Every review is on one page, with an entertaining tidbit, age-appropriateness and run-time on the facing page. I found several of my all-time favorites, but what's better is that I found a few gems that weren't on my list yet.

I don't normally write reviews, however in this case I felt compelled to do so. If you're looking into the topic of family films, let me save you some time. Get this book. As others have noted, Mr. Booth's reviews are entertaining, informative and spot on. His selections include films off the beaten path. Good stuff!

...and by that I mean finding out what a serious drug user Cass was most of her life. We're talking heroin here, people, HEROIN. No, She wasn't in the same league with John Phillips, to be sure. Very few people reach that rarified atmosphere (read HIS book), and fewer still live to tell the story. But still... heroin usage throughout a large portion of her life, and on top of all the other drugs she dabbled with. Rather disconcerting, to say the least.

This knowledge does not modify in the slightest her achievements as an artist, but it is a good example of why one should always remember to separate that "artist" from the flesh-and-blood person. Which brings me to another point that I gleaned from this book: that she is the iconic figure she is today rather in spite of herself. She never really wanted to be in a rock or even a pop group. She wanted to the kind of singer she eventually became on the RCA albums, and especially the "Don't Call Me Mama Anymore" album. She wanted to be a Barbara Streisand or a Judy Garland. Whether she would ever have achieved that goal had she not crossed paths with John Phillips could be debated ad infinitum, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and say no, she would not have. Why? Because of the way she looked, of course. Her talent and spectacular voice would always have been overshadowed by that factor in the world she sought to be accepted in. It was the quirky, hippie, pop music world that allowed just enough of a foot in the door to force it the rest of the way open with her talent... a world she really didn't seek.

So while the Mamas and Papas would have been something very different without her, I believe Phillips still would have put together something in that same vein and had great success because his marvelous writing and formidable leadership just would not be denied for very long. On the other hand I don't think Cass' legacy would be as it is today had she not met John and become the main voice associated with those records.

As to the style of the book itself, I would tend to agree with reviewer from Publishers Weekly who described it as "slow and repetitive". I did not find it a "fast read" as one other reviewer did, but I still enjoyed it and would definitely recommend it. I much preferred this book to Michelle Phillips', which was just too slick and breezy.

Wow...words cannot begin to describe this book! A very detailed, and well researched book about one of the greatest female singers ever to grace us with her beautiful voice and music! After reading this book I found myself lost and up in the clouds because I have never, ever been so into A book in all my life. I just wish I was old enough back then to have fully appreciated Cass, The Mamas and Papas, and the music explosion of incredible people, songs, and albums(I was born in 1968). I guess I will have to settle doing it now. I hope Cass knows somehow that she has so many fans who adore her to this day!! It's very sad to think that she's not here today to feel that warmth. Well, I'd like to think she does know, and is smiling at those fans who continue to be touched by her spirit, music, and humor. Some say Michelle was the "Pretty" one in the Mamas And Papas...I honestly have to say, nahhhh. Cass was as beautiful on the outside, and she was on the inside. The only thing I believe I would maybe tell her, if I had meet her back then...I wish, was to stop the drug use. After reading the book, I learned that she was making big steps to clean up that aspect of her life at the time of her death. The drug use would have turned me off for sure, but this was the mid-late 1960's. If you are A new Cass Elliot fan, purchase this book. You will learn so much about her life, and become even A bigger fan. If you are already A huge Cass fan, and don't own this book...you are doing yourself an in-justice. You will also learn new things like I did! Kudos to the author for an incredible treasure! We still miss you Cass!

A thorough, carefully researched biography of the infamous Mama Cass. Through interviews with Cass' family and friends, the author debunks the Ham Sandwich Myth which has been urban legend for years. If you want a detailed biography of this talented woman, this is a great one to start with. Cass never really wanted to be a folk-rock/pop singer; she was a Broadway Baby and her love was Broadway musicals. But without her, The Mamas & The Papas would not have had the success they did have in the 1960's, in my opinion. Her larger-than-life figure and personality, plus her knockout voice really made that group.

I like the book I recemend it to anyone who is a mama and papas fan

This book was very good, but it was sad to find out how really pathetic these talented people were. John Philips was the worst of the group, what a egotistical and controlling as*hole! I was totally blown away by the actions of this famous group! I understand that this was the 60's , but not everyone was doing drugs and laying around stone out of their minds. Cass Elliott brags that she dropped acid 5 times during her pregnancy and her daughter turned out perfectly normal! She was considered a "good" mother by her friends?!! (I have to wonder what her daughter really thinks about that.) To me, being very talented is not an excuse for being irresponsible. I'm glad I read this book, It was a real eye-opener about who the Mama's and the Papa's really were.If you Love this group you HAVE to read this.