Reviews Books

Sorry, I haven't read the book, but I was wondering if there is any movie stills of Cillian Murphy (without the mask) in this book, or if I would be better off with "The Art of Batman Begins"? E-mail: kayjeckel@yahoo.com

First, ignore the review by the guy from Chile. He can't articulate the language, what makes me think he knows what he's talking about regarding Batman Begins? With any big budget blockbuster comes the inevitable parade of merchandise. Few films other than Star Wars can match the marketing juggernaut of the Batman films. Batman Begins is the long awaited beginning to a new series of Batman films, revived back to life after Joel Schumacher and George Clooney nearly killed the franchise. The official movie guide is a great scrapbook and companion to the film. It features dozens of photographs from the film, absolutely brilliant photography. There are snippets of the script as well as several short pieces detailing Batman's origins, as well as interviews. Not just a throwaway marketing item or a piece of fluff, this is definitely a collectible you'll want to have. It's informative and entertaining.

If some people spent half as much time proofreading their reviews as the did spewing bile maybe they wouldn't look like they were written by a disgruntled 8 year old. This is a very informitive look at a great movie. Very highly recommended.

I ENJOYED READING THIS BOOK VERY MUCH. IF YOU LIKE DOGS AND STORIES WITH WONDERFUL TALES THIS WOULD BE A GOOD BOOK FOR YOU. EVERY CHAPTER HAD ME WANTING TO READ MORE.

I recommend this book to people that like exciting books such as this one. I like this book because of the reason that it is funny,sad and exciting. My favorite character is winn dixie the dog. He acts like a real person. The author describes him that he smiles by showing his teeth. This is my favorite book.

I am a 7th grader at Vista Middle School aknd I read the book Because of Winn-Dixie for a school project and i just loved it. I loved this book because I love stories that have animals as the main characters and that are part of the plot. Also I rate this book five stars because I can relate to most of the characters and I just all around loved this book and I'm very glad that my school library carried such a wonderful book.
Ocean Grinde
Ferndale,WA Vista middle school

I truly like the behind-the-scenes and I wonder if this authorhas had special liaisons with the star. I was shocked to see how handsome and sexy the author is too in the back of the book and that he's in every book with Ken Ryker or Ty Fox or Ryan Idol. He truly knows them all. He is lucky to visit them and has appeared in some videos himself, but I think only two of them has his with his predigious prod showing. I like reading anything this guy writes ...seems like he really enjoys the world of porn.

This book is awesome! It has cool pictures and awesome behind the scenes gossip about who was doing who, when where and how! Totally awesome by itself, but it also helps to give information about the various films

This is one book you should have before you go out there and rent any gay adult video. It will save you a lot of wasted time watching dull, boring videos. It's a good book to have for reference before you buy or rent any gay adult video. Mickey Skee knows his videos, and probably should after going to 50 adult video shoots every year. What a job! I always await his new listings every year because it makes it so easy to find the best videos, especially when there is so many out there to choose from.

Each video is summarized, and Mickey tells us why he thinks it's one of the best, and gives us some behind the scenes information you won't find anywhere else. If you enjoy Gay Adult Videos this book is a must. I look forward each year to his new edition, and I'm never disappointed.

This is a wonderful, amazing book. But STOP as this obsolete version has been superceded by "Joel Whitburn Presents the Billboard Albums" which updates the book through Dec 31, 2005.

I first got this book in 1976 and have gotten it every time it's updated, and I have only two complaints about it; 1) it only gets updated every 3 to 5 years and 2) it's so damned expensive! But once you open it (and it feels like an LA Phone book), you forget the price and just OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH at how fact-filled and interesting it it! It practically tells you the last time your favorite artist picked his nose! It has EVERYTHING! I only with they would update it something like every two years. Get it, along with the Albums and Singles books, and you really don't need anything else. This book is THE B E S T !

I've been on Record Research's list for many years, and this was my very first Pop Albums book I purchased. It's got several amazing features. The best feature is that you can see which albums made the Pop Catalog albums chart. Although all of the artists do not have their complete discographies listed (only the albums that were charted on the Billboard Top 200 albums chart are in this book), and not much facts and trivia under albums, I still think this book deserves to be on music lovers shelves. I hope in the next edition they will show what current albums that can be found on vinyl.

The two reviews preceding mine are excellent and I will not venture to dismiss either in any manner. But let me add this: Martin Conisby's Vengeance - the sequel to Black Bartlemy's Treasure - is said by some to be even finer than the first. Indeed they were originally meant by Farnol to be published as one book but his publisher decided to split the tome in two so as to garner more loot. Seemed like a good idea at the time but this has driven many readers nuts in the pre-Internet Era. Some forty plus years ago, for instance, it took me five years to find Martin Conisby's Vengeance. Now I keep two copies of each on my shelf just as insurance. And, oh yes, for you diehard treasure seekers out there Farnol wrote a prequel to both called Adam Penfeather, Buccaneer. Happy cutlassing!

The Yuletide Kid

I loved this adventure story. The previous reviewer did a good job of summarizing the storyline. I found wonderfully diverse characters, a rollicking story of the high seas, pirates, love, vengeance, courage, survival on a deserted island, and more. I was shocked to have the story end "in the middle" with no resolution!! I immediately found "Martin Conisby's Vengeance" and for another 80 cents I had it in my Kindle in minutes and continued. His writing style reminds me a bit of Robert Louis Stevenson, particularly Kidnapped, with the bond between David Balfour and Alan. I will write a review of the second book, but if you like adventure stories (Haggard, RL Stevenson) you should find this a roller coaster of adventure filled with cliffhangers. Accurate historical details (they prime their flintlocks, patch their musket balls) and ships, ships, ships and life (and death) aboard ships. Courage, fighting, honor -- all in wonderful profusion.

"The Frenchman beside me had been dead since dawn. His scarred and shackled body swayed limply back and forth with every sweep of the great oar as we, his less fortunate bench-fellows, tugged and strained to keep time to the stroke."

Mr. Farnol brings back the pirate days of the Spanish Main in this stirring book filled with picturesque characters. It is a full-blooded, wholesome novel that captivates the reader.

Martine Conisby, Lord Wendover, embittered by his five years of slavery on the Spanish galleon Esmeralda, escapes during a sea fight to an English ship and makes his way back to England, determined to avenge himself on Richard Brandon, who was the cause of his father's death and his own ill-treatment. Broken in body and spirit, he arrives home one night disguised as a tramp, just in time to save from the hands of robbers a beautiful girl, Lady Jane Brandon, the daughter of the man whom he has sworn to punish. In a tavern he meets a pal, Adam Penfeather, who unfolds to him the story of Black Bartlemy, an infamous pirate, and his treasure buried on an island-- treasure of fabuous value that has been the dream and hope of roving adventurers along the Spanish Main for many years.

The engrossed reader will eagerly follow the adventures of the treasure seekers who set sail on the good ship Faithful Friend and the unique experiences of Martin and the fair Lady Jane - whose family the hero hated - as they found themselves alone on the island which contained the buried treasure. He will encounter some rogues as bloodthirsty as any pirates who ever sailed the Seven Seas, and discover love episodes that stir the emotions. Mr. Farnol has never made a wider appeal than in this, his first sea story.

I'm a fan of formal verse and discovered Gylys through the villanelles she published with the Boston Review (I think). Her tone is great, her diction striking, yet approachable, and her subjects are wonderful. This is a book I keep coming back to.

Bodies That Hum is a strange mix of formal poetic style and frank sexual expression. It seems to herald a new wave of formal, even archaic style (and I mean that in the best possible sense) brought to bear on these wonderful matters. You can't know what's going on in poetry without knowing this book.

Beth Gylys knows we're driven by desire and her poems show us as sexual beings. She's witty, amused at folly and pretense. She often shows men as self-deluded fools for love, incapable of clearly stating what they feel. To this male reader, it's somewhat disconcerting to find a woman coming this close to the bone. And yet this poet seems to love men while she sees through them. "She watches men -- the way they move, their shirts./ There's something good in every one she's found." ("The Erratic Gardener")

Sex is a frequent topic, with frank language. There's a lusty edge that's closer to the way most people talk and joke about sex than we usually find in poetry, unless you go back to Chaucer and Bocaccio. In "Fervor," for instance, we get a fantasy moment, incited by a flasher in Central Park, in which suddenly inhibitions dissolve and people throughout the city succumb to their urges: "Clothes fall to the floor,/ and legs open spontaneously;/ fingers curl, clutching air or bits of clothing./ Like the bodies of newborn babies,/ bodies writhe and sing in monosyllables:/ "Please," and "Oh, God."

A striking aspect of Gylys's work is her formal virtuosity. Villanelles and sestinas are ancient, some would say antique, forms in which words and lines repeat according to strict rules. Remarkably, Gylys has 14 villanelles in this collection. One of the better known poems of this century is Dylan Thomas's villanelle about his dying father, "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night." Gylys's colloquial diction and sense of humor subvert the expectation of rhetorical grandeur that, since Thomas, is part of this form -- as in "Marriage Song," which in 19 chastening lines (a villanelle is five tercets and a concluding quatrain) takes us through an affair and broken marriage:

"He saw this woman at the skating rink,/ watching their sons play hockey from the stands./ He fought the urge to ask her for a drink./ She wore those stretchy pants, a long faux mink,/ slid next to him and said, "Hi, my name's Nance,"/ He wanted her right there. He couldn't think."

Along with fables recounted from a third-person perspective, there's a first-person narrative running through several sections of the book: the story of a woman whose marriage broke up, who had an affair with a married man, who's single again, beset with longing and loneliness. This voice struggles to express her experience in language and wants to provoke the rest of us to think about "the ways humans mess up loving."

I have read about 50 POW escape books, most from WW2. This guy was tough. Most of the escapers are amazing people. I think most the escape books have more humor than this one. Richard Pape wasn't about being funny he was determined to escape at all costs.

I just finish Richard Papes' novel about his exploits as a POW in Europe during WWII. He has a great ability to tell not only his story of survival and wartime intrigue but those of the Poles and other eastern Ethics group. If you ever needed a pick me in today's fast pace world this book is it.

True story first person page turner about a British RAF pilot shot down during WWII and his accounts of being captured, escaped, captured again and escaped for a third time. Brillantly written, taking you on an across occupied Europe underground suspence story of bravery and heroism

Great charts - all I needed for my Psychopatholgy course and definitely all that's needed for Boards.

Taking this class in medical school was a breeze with this book. I read it cover to cover easily. The author is very good about keeping each individual chapter only a handful of pages long, but the text doesn't become too wordy or detailed. Diagrams are very well done, and it would be worth it to have this book for these alone. However, this book isn't the perfect reference. It is a little long for a review before the boards, especially since this is a low yield topic. Though I highly recommend using it during class. If you want to slim the book down even more, the high-yield series has one that is equally as good.

I've had the privelege of having the author be my professor at UMDNJ. Knowing Dr. Fadem personally, I can see the kind of care she puts into teaching students. It is with this same care that this book is written. This book is a great review of the material and is very useful for the Behavioral Science shelf exam (and Step 1 review)

A classic book covering all aspects of business stats
-a real boon to students and business professionals.

I manage a group of people who are incredibly skilled in data modeling and business statistics. I purchased this book as a refresher and reference - and was very happy with it. It discusses key statistical issues in simple terms - giving you the tools to handle yourself in any discussion.

I read this book just before starting an MBA course called "Basic Statistics". I found the book to be clear, intuitive and it certainly covered all topics we discussed in class. In my opinion, this book presents an easy way to understand Statistics by applying them to real business situations. I still use it as reference at work. Highly recommendable for business people interested in Statistics and with no much background in Math (just make sure you know how to add)

This is one of the best first person accounts of WW2.
I have read most of the first person accounts from the German side,and this ranks among the best.

This splendid book tells the remarkable story of Degrelle and hundreds of thousands of other non-German volunteers who fought against the forces of the Soviet tyranny in World War II. Because circumstances allied us with Stalin, people like Degrelle were vilified as "collaborators" with the Germans. Anyone with an interest in the Eastern Front will learn volumes from the author's humble recitation of what he and his men endured. As horrible as the Eastern Front was, the author endured worse after the war, when his family was imprisoned and his children forcibly scattered to institutions across Europe in a vengeful attempt to punish him. It's a story you'll never forget, and a side of history wholly unknown to most.

It is never easy to judge the motivations of people 60 years prior, but Degrelle gives a plausible and doubtlessly accurate explanation of the political malaise in Belgium and much of Europe before the war. The view he shared with a large number of others was that the Bolsheviks were the real danger to Europe and the "European" army fighting the Reds on the Eastern Front saw this as fighting for their past and their future as Europeans. With the wisdom of hindsight was he wrong?
Degrelle also goes some way to debunking a few myths.
- Scorched earth gets barely a mention. In fact there are numerous mentions of huge crops late into the fighting.
- That it all came down to numbers. Degrelle credits the Russians with fighting to match the conditions while explaining how the German "civilisation" was often a real handicap.
- Worse than the cold was the mud.
Degrelle paints an ugly picture of war, but displays a love of life and beauty, things we are not supposed to associate with the SS, even the Waffen SS. It is a privilege to be given his perspective.