Brandon Books

Unlike most of the other reviewers, I thought that this was an excellent book. The order of content was well laid out. There may have been a few silly mistakes(there are in most books), but an intelligent person could figure them out. I highly recommend this as your first book on the subject.

This book is very good at explaining NT Server 4.0 but it is not what a professional should use. I used this and Exam Cram and passed the test with a 833. If you are new to NT this book is helpful but if you are knowledgeable of NT Server don't bother with it. The book puts terms into to simple terms for just about anyone.

The most average book I have ever seen. I don't know what I really expected as the MCSE is not a qualification for DUMMIES. Maybe apart from the rrors this book will make you pass the test but don't think that will help you get job because it has virtually nothing that would be helpful in the real world. Avoid this one like the plague.

This book already has plenty of one-star reviews so I am just piling on here. But having just passed the exam (with a 933), I felt compelled to come here to warn other MCSE candidates to stay away from this book.

This book is not only full of inexcusable errors but it is poorly laid out as well. Many of the "practice" questions cover material that will never be asked in the actual exam. It is hard to believe that the so-called MCSE's who wrote this book would put their names to it. Fortunately I realized that this book was useless early on and I was able to pass the test easily using other study materials.

If you want to pass this exam, you are much better off with the excellent Exam Cram book and the infamous "Braindump" website (as well as your original course material).

I am normally a big fan of the "Dummies" books but this one was a big disappointment. The "Dummies" books excel at giving novices some rudimentary information about a given topic with a good dose of humor. But getting your MCSE is serious business and the "Dummies" people clearly are not up to the task As soon as I came home from passing my exam, I took this book and threw it in the recycle bin. A total waste of money.

I'll start by saying that I would recommend The msce books for dummies on networking essentials and the NT Workstation exams. I WOULD NOT recommend paying money for the MCSE NT Server 4.0 dummies book. This book is filled with errors, and inaccuracies. The short comings that I found are in the areas of troubleshooting, Managing resources, win95 admin utilities for NT, and Optimization. I would like to add that the dummies series of books are normally a very well written series that puts the facts in plain english (no techno-babble). This book fell well short of my expectations, if you don't want to spend a LOT OF MONEY taking THE Microsoft NT 4.0 SERVER exam more than once, I strongly suggest finding another study aid besides this book! I used the WINDOWS NT 4.0 MCSE STUDY GUIDE by Alan R. Carter ISBN 0764530879. This is a very well written, concise and easy to read book with lots of good hands on labs! I passed the 70-67 server test with some help from THIS book. Good luck.

This sounds like fun: some ancient massive reptile still slinks about the British countryside, seeking blood! Well, Stoker's paper-thin characterizations and clock-work plotting ruin an amusing premise. Turgidly written and nonsensically blocked out (characters seem like marionettes who move without reason from scene to scene), this is useful only as a look at Stoker's odd thinking toward the end of his life. As Victorian romance, it's barely passable, but it's a sad last effort from Stoker.

See the movie! As usual with Ken Russell's films, it's cheerfully vulgar and over-the-top. And Amanda Donohoe makes a lovely "White Worm."

You must remember several biographical things about the book's author Bram Stoker and his last novel `The Lair of the White Worm' before reading it. By the time he wrote the book in 1911, Henry Irving, renowned actor for whom Stoker worked as business manager, had died in 1905. Stoker himself had suffered a stroke which nearly killed him, and in 1912 he died, about one year after the publication of `White Worm.' There are shadows of death hanging over the book, which shows the clear sign of deteriorating health of the writer.

`The Lair of the White Worm' can be rephrased as `The Lady is a White Snake.' The book is about Adam, one young man coming back from Sydney, who finds that an enormous white snake dwells in the cave (in the basement of a mansion near the house where Adam lives with his grand-uncle). Moreover, the evil snake can transform into a noblewoman Lady Arabella, who is beautiful, cold, seductive, and calculating.

The story is muddled at best, and the outrageous behaviors of the characters are all beyond belief. We meet Mr. Caswall, who is obsessed with the idea of flying a kite up in the sky. There are several sequences in which he tries to `conquer' the will of two ladies using mesmerism. Lady Arabella always carries a gun (just in case when she is attacked by a mongoose, I am not joking). Nothing makes sense here, and Adam and others, who should have known better, act as if nothing unusual happened after witnessing these weird things.

It is often pointed out that the text of `Dracula' is full of sexual innuendo. In `The Lair of the White Worm' the hidden meanings are more obvious, but written with less subtlety. The book is sometimes criticized for its misogamy (seen in the characterization of Lady Arabella), and the criticism is mostly justified. The book's conclusion is extraordinary in its sickly descriptions, which easily beat Lucy's staking scene in `Dracula.'

In a sense, Ken Russell did an incredible job in making a film out of this mess. If you're looking for some hints as to the mind of the creator of Dracula, you might be rewarded, finding some creepy images among the feeble and incoherent story. Otherwise, stay away, or read some other Gothic novels instead.

The Lair of the White Worm, which is also known as The Garden of Evil, is a classic horror novel by Bram Stoker, who is most famous for Dracula (1897), regarded as the greatest horror novel ever written. It was published in 1911, the year before Stoker's death. In 1988, Ken Russell adapted the novel into a film starring Hugh Grant.

The plot of the novel centers around Adam Salton, originally from Sydney, Australia, who receives a letter from his grand-uncle, Richard Salton, in England in 1860 for the purpose of establishing a relationship between these last two members of the family. Richard Salton plans to make Adam his heir. Adam arrives at Southampton and travels to Richard Salton's house in Mercia, the estate called Lesser Hill, and quickly finds himself in the center of mysterious and inexplicable occurrences.

He meets Sir Nathaniel de Salis who is a friend and associate to Richard Salton. He tours the countryside and visits Liverpool and becomes familiar with the terrain and its history. He learns that the area has an ancient history going back to Roman times and the time of the Druids. He discovers that Romans had settled the region and had built structures there.

The new heir to the Caswall estate, Castra Regis in Latin, the Royal Camp, is Edgar Caswall who is obsessed with mesmerism. Lady Arabella March is a mysterious widow whose husband was found with a gunshot wound to the head. She is haughty and domineering wearing tight white clothes that give her a snake-like appearance.

Adam Salton discovers black snakes on the property and buys a mongoose to hunt them down. He then discovers a child who is bitten on the neck. The child barely survives. He learns that another child was killed earlier while animals were also killed in the region. The mongoose attacks Arabella who shoots it to death. Arabella tears another mongoose apart with her hands. Arabella then murders Oolanga, the African servant, by dragging him down into a pit or hole. Adam, who is shot at, witnesses the murder. Adam then suspects Arabella of the other crimes.

Adam and Sir Nathaniel de Salis plot to stop Arabella by whatever means necessary. They suspect that she wants to murder Mimi Watford, who is half-Burmese, whom Adam marries. Mimi's half-sister is Lilla Watford, who is terrorized by Caswall and subsequently dies. Nathaniel is an Abraham Van Helsing type of character who begins tracking down the human monster, Arabella. Arabella assumes a Dracula-like menace as Adam and Nathaniel track her down to destroy her.

The White Worm is a large snake-like creature that lives in the hole or pit in Arabella's house. Like the black cat in "The Squaw", the White Worm has green glowing eyes and feeds on whatever is thrown to it in the pit. The giant White Worm eats Oolanga when he is thrown down the pit. The White Worm ascends from the pit and seeks to attack Adam and Mimi in a forest.

Adam plans to pour sand into the pit and to use dynamite to kill the giant White Worm in the pit.

Edgar Caswall is a slightly pathological eccentric who has Mesmer's chest which he keeps at the Doom Tower, in the turret-chamber. Caswall wants to recreate mesmerism, associated with Anton Mesmer, which was a precursor to hypnotism. He has a giant kite in the shape of a hawk to scare away pigeons which have gone berzerk and have attacked his fields.

In the final scene, Adam Salton, Mimi Watford, and Nathaniel de Salis confront Arabella and Edgar Caswall. A thunderstorm and lightning destroy Diana's Grove by igniting the dynamite.

The Lair of the White Worm is a surreal horror fantasy novel by one of the greatest horror writers of all time. Dracula is arguably the greatest horror novel ever written in any language. It inspired the German horror classic Nosferatu and the 1931 Universal seminal classic Dracula starring Bela Lugosi. That movie started the horror genre in the US and around the world, being Universal's first horror movie. Dracula proved to be a huge success which convinced Universal to release other horror movies.

Most readers only know Bram Stoker for one work, Dracula. He wrote other novels, however, such as The Lady of the Shroud, The Jewel of Seven Stars, The Lair of the White Worm, The Man, non-fiction books such as Famous Impostors (1910), and short story collections such as Dracula's Guest (1914) and Under the Sunset (1882). The Lair of the White Worm is a short novel, approximately 120 pages in length. It is highly recommended. It has unforgettable surreal images and fantasy horror. It is a page-turner and a book difficult to put down. It is well-written and recaptures some of the menace and terror of Dracula.

The Lair of the White Worm is a must-read and a must-own horror novel for anyone interested in the genre by the foremost horror writer, Bram Stoker. The novel was published one year before Stoker died. He managed to get in one more shocker and thriller.

Allegedly written while the author was going insane, "The Lair of the White Worm" is a fantastic, dream-like narrative whose only saving grace is that there's nothing else like it out there. The plot, if one can call it that, is a maze of myth and pseudo-gothic imagery that, while never the least bit convincing, is somehow irresistible. It is to Stoker's credit that he was able to infuse even a total failure with a mesmeric readability--perhaps he had taken lessons from one his own characters (read the book and you'll get it)! The whole has shades of "Dracula," though none of that work's macabre artistry. Whereas "Dracula" is a frequently subtle, carefully crafted piece of literature which defies the reader to refute its horrors, "Lair of the White Worm" requires so many leaps of faith that it's impossible to achieve any suspension of disbelief. But again, despite its literary deficiciencies, the book inexplicably entertains on a minor level. Amidst the decaying estates through which his characters stumble, the hackneyed romance, the stupefying telepathic duels, the clouds of protective pigeons and the malevolent kite (!)and the gross-out climax in the midst of a raging storm--between all these things are glimpses into a great writer's mind that, to the true devotee of classic horror, might make this book worth buying. Caveat Emptor!

It has been said that Ken Russell's 1980s cinematic adaptation of Bram Stoker's "classic", "The Lair of the White Worm", is a travesty of the original, a betrayal of the source material. However, a read of the book in question will in fact reveal that Russell must be some sort of genius to rewrite this thing so that it makes any kind of sense at all.

Our story begins in rural England, though I must say that it's not much like the rural England I remember from my childhood. For one thing, every landmark and citizen appears to live within one hundred feet of each other; this almost claustrophobic aspect of the Less Than Great Outdoors proves a plot point later on when not one, but two, places of residence are blown to smithereens by the same bolt of lightning. Still, they were evil places of residence, so let's not trouble ourselves too much about it.

Our central characters are young Adam Salton, an allegedly dashing Australian, and his pal Sir Nathaniel de Salis, the kind of individual whose immediate reaction upon hearing that a young lord of the realm was staring at a young woman is that this is "a matter of life and death".

The rest of our merry band includes Edgar Caswall, said young lord, whose primary delight in life is flying kites through thunderstorms in a manner that can only be described as Darwinian; Mimi and Lilla Watford, shy blushing young country lasses straight from Central Casting, whose primary role in the proceedings is to engage in inadvertently hilarious staring contests with Edgar; Oolanga, a jaw-droppingly racist caricature of a black man who, since Stoker wants to have his Ku Klux Kake and eat it too, is both manipulative AND stupid; and, last but certainly not least, Lady Arabella March, the White Worm herself, although Stoker can't seem to make his mind up as to whether or not she was originally human and is now possessed by the Worm's spirit (as a flashback by Sir Nate would indicate), or is actually an ancient serpent who has evolved the ability to shape-shift (as everyone eventually concludes).

Evidently, when the forces of Good and Evil are collectively as effective as, well, flying a kite in the middle of a thunderstorm, you can immediately see how the story is going to be problematic. This, however, does not do the book justice. Independent of the characters, Stoker manages to cram in such enormous plot holes that the Worm, were it to really exist, could comfortably dwell inside one of them for many centuries to come. This is a novel where, after the battle lines have been clearly drawn, the deadly enemies STILL keep inviting each other to tea; where two entire chapters are dedicated to a chest that belonged to Mesmer, which turns out to have absolutely no further role to play in proceedings whatsoever; where a villain murders a victim right in front of the hero and then does nothing to stop him telling anyone other than writing him a sternly worded letter. Clearly, we're not in Kansas anymore. I understand they have editors there.

In addition to all this, we're treated to Stoker's thrilling theories about such matters as gender (women are either evil or stupid), mental illness (mad people are just being selfish), and, especially, race relations, upon which everyone in the novel, good and bad, can agree that black people are just naturally inferior. Isn't it nice that they can all put aside their differences in the face of a common cause?

So, yes, all of this contributes to make "Lair of the White Worm" a less than urgent addition to one's book collection. However, I hasten to add that the book, if read as a comedy, is an absolute laugh riot. Keeping that in mind, I shall leave you with my own personal favorite exchange from the novel, one which, I hope, will afford you as much mirth as it did me:

"'...God alone knows what poor Captain March discovered - it must have been something too ghastly for human endurance, if my theory is correct that the once beautiful human body of Lady Arabella is under the control of this ghastly White Worm.'

"Adam nodded.

"'But what can we do, sir - it seems a most difficult problem.'"

The pages aren't flowing over with words and the cover is kinda cheesy. What is that saying? Oh yeah, "You can't judge a book by its what?"

I did a "Search inside the book" before I bought it and I have to say that I liked the original cover better. That's neither here nor there, though.

This is a work of poetry; you could even say a piece of art. It is better left to those who can appreciate the true unveiling of a heart. He doesn't need to spell it out because you'll either get it or you won't.

As a woman, it filled my heart with love. It is so tender, respectful, and honest. His words flow like a hummingbird floats, full of grace and beauty. I believe that he expresses what every woman wants to hear.

If it doesn't melt your heart I don't know what to say, because mine is in a puddle on the floor.

I bought this book thinking it was Brandon Boyd of Incubus. partly because the book is being sold with Incubus CD's but after receving the book and reading it I was not too sure. not to say its not a good book its okay, just a little mushy. Than after going to the book signing on May 12th some girls brought this book for Brandon to sign and he did not even know this book existed. so I just wanted to let everyone know as to not be confused this is NOT a Brandon Boyd of Incubus book.
And thank you to Brandon for clearing things up!!!

Just to let you know. I was a sucker and bought it. I thought it was Brandon Boyd from Incubus but to my dismay it wasn't. Whoever published this stupid book really needs to reevaluate there career choice. This was an awful book. Most of the book has one to two sentances per page....... If you put all the sentences together you get a 10 page book. not to mention the book was way to mushy for even me and thats bad. Anyways don't wast your time.

Sorry, but as an Incubus fan, I think it's unfair to give a 1 rating to a book that A. you haven't read, B. YOU were misled by, C. the maturity level of some "fans" brings down... said level really shines through.... so I thought I'd help out and give a positive review; though, this isn't by the beloved Incubus lead singer. Also, if you were much of a fan at all, you'd have known that "White Fluffy Clouds" was Brandon's first book... and I'm not even into knowing the "hardcore facts" of the band!

though i agree with those saying that you should research the books first, i must admit i was expecting the other brandon when i bought this (and no, i'm not a sad little teenage girl, but i like incubus' lyrics and am a huge fan of the BAND not just the singer).
now that's over with... this book may be a little mushy to some, but it really has some beautiful lines in there that can move even the least romantic of you. it's just full of short poems that really make you think about your own experiences.

This is the book which launched the career of Herbert Becker but it is not as good as the newer ones.

Mr. Becker offer us a collection of inept so called secrets of popular illusions. With the exception of one or two sections, the drawings are of poor quality and the secrets are unworkable. The chapter on David Copperfield is stupid. Who is Mr. Becker trying to fool. Generally badly written. Fail to explain the true beauty of the art of magic. Not recommended. Suggest instead any book by Mark Wilson or in the Dover collection.

Who on earth is Mr. Becker?? He pretends to be a magician. To me he looks more like somebody who had access to some of these secrets but never bother verify them. The secret of the water levitation is obviously stupid. probably Mr. Becker did not have enough money to buy the plans from a real magician, so he invented. A book for voyeurs with nothing better to do in their lives. Could be done so much better. And we are killing forests to print that ?????

You won't find all the secrets of magic in this book, it's more of a David Copperfield advertisement, with a hole chapter of his credits, along with some generic secrets that you can find in library books.

Do you believe that anybody once fooled by a Magic trick should be allowed to wtite a book once he believes he worked out the secret ? Don't encourage this type a behaviour ! Don't waste your money !!! It is badly written. The drawings are of very bad quality. And what about this chapter on David Copperfield ? What is the point !!!

This was such a bad book. First of all the art in the first issue collected here (Xmen #92) was so bad I wanted to drop it right there - and the story was just fluff. A really bad filler issue with nonsense pages until the final sentimental page of "We are the X-Men". Gimme a break!

Then the following issues - Astonishing X-Men #1, 2, and 3; Uncanny X-Men 375; and X-Men #95 - were just assinine in nature. The first 3 are about a group of kids called Manites where Wolverine is killed. Yeah, but of course it's not really Wolverine, because he's actually Apocalypse's new horseman Death - which seemed interesting since i havent read that storyline, then BAM! No more pages!!!! Sure there is a couple more issues in there but I was so displeased with this book I had to just give up reading it.

Forget it, the art blows on almost every page and the story is terrible and half baked. Where's Claremont when you need him!?!?

Really atrocious. The story begins with the X-men disbanding, and then just reforming for no reason with new members. No explanation is given as to why these characters come in, or even what the point of it all is. The was decent in places, but on the whole pretty [disappointing], and there was basically no characterization. I felt cheated after reading this even though I hadn't even bought it. Thank God Grant Morrison came along and saved the X-men.

The X-Men Dream Team, that's the cast of the TPB collection of the Astonishing X-Men-Cyclops, Phoenix, Wolverine, Cable, X-Man (Nate Grey) and Angel. Beautifully drawn by Brandon Peterson, this prequel to the end of the millenium X-Men epic "The Twelve" is well scripted and action packed and contains a shocker ending that will leave you breathless. I just wish however that they will follow this up with an X-Men "The Twelve" collection so the readers wont feel cheated by the shocker ending. All in all, the art, writing and most especially the cast, makes this collection a must have for old and new X-fans.

This TPB reprints X-Men #92, Astonishing X-Men #1-3, Uncanny X-Men #375 and X-Men #95.

The innocent and scared little Nina calls out to Jean Grey for help. A mysterious warrior called Death is hunting her and her friends down. Jean and Cyclops team up with Cable, X-Man and Wolverine to help them out. But as the story progresses, they find out that they're dealing with much more than what they expected.

This is the prologue to the unfortunately poorly executed Twelve storyline - with a truly surprising and questionable ending. The story in this one is average as the X-Men are perpetually searching for the children and their hunter - Occasionally retreating back to base. It has some okay twists. The action scenes are pretty good and there is another big surprising action scene that goes a little bit over the top.

My major gripe with this one is mostly the art. I mean, it's very good and the colouring is excellent (although a bit too polished at times - especially the characters), but the characters don't look anything like how we know them. They look entirely different. Cable looks a bit like MacGuyver and lost some pounds, while Gambit gained some in his chin, Nate looks more like a little boy (more than he already is), Cyclops also seems to have found the fountain of youth and some drawings of Jean Grey are a terrible disgrace.

But that doesn't take much away from the comic overall. Still a pity though, cos it would have raised my rating. And with no numbering of the pages (I don't think they should ever start doing that), the page numbers on the chapter index seem a bit useless. But it's nice to know how many pages this TPB has before you start reading it.

You might want to read the Twelve storyline after reading this anyway, but as of writing it's not out on TPB form yet. I'd suggest waiting for the TPB, which will be released sooner or later - Or if you're really in a hurry, head down to the local comic shop and get the induvidual comic issues.

On the back of this book:

"The tools that accompany General Chemistry: The Essential Concepts are designed to help you succeed in your general chemistry course. Please visit your bookstore to order these helpful supplements..."

Following this little note are no less than 6 highly recommended websites, workbooks, and OTHER textbooks to use just to understand this one textbook. I think a clearer message would read "Please purchase these materials, and set this book back on the shelf, thanks."

This book is so poorly organized that it makes my head spin. As mentioned by another reviewer, the tools for effectively learning material appear in chapters AFTER said material. This book features page-long discourses on the wonders of quantum physics and how amazing chemistry is, and information that hurtles so far above our heads that it knocks birds out of the sky.
These walls of text have various sample problems interspersed throughout, but I can say that 3 sample problems are not enough to explain the 117 "practice" word problems that follow each chapter. (I counted)

I am glad that our teacher never touched this textbook throughout the semester, but we were required to read it on our own and no one understood it. The class after assigned reading homework, we needed an hour to an hour and a half long lecture on what a few sections in the book meant, put down simple understandable terms.

This book makes seemingly simple concepts way too complicated by throwing in information that only works to confuse the reader.
The only useful items are the tables that appear in the appendix listing heats of formation, standard enthalpies, etc., which have an unusual amount of organization compared to the rest of the book.

If your goal is to learn chemistry, then stay away from this textbook.

This text serves its purpose perfectly. It is very well-written and succint. Prof. Chang realizes that there is more to chemistry than solving problems...he does a fantastic job of presenting the essential concepts and then solving many sample problems. There's no way that a chemistry book can show an example of every type of problem; that expectation is unreasonable. This text seeks to teach students chemistry with the examples falling into place.

This is the book that was assigned to my general chemistry class. Personally I think this is one of the most horrible books ever written, not just chemistry but on any subject. Even though the book says "General Chemistry" there is NO general overview of chemistry whatsoever in the chapters. The only thing that even comes close is the one page "A Note to the Student" thing that says chemistry is percieved as difficult. If the subject is difficult then it is the authors job to make it as simple as possible, which he clearly doesn't. Every chapter I have read gets way too detailed right off the bat. The equations that are given rarely have an explanation of where they came from; they take on a view of, "Here is the equation, now memorize it." They don't try to explain the relationship of the specific subject of chemistry on hand. Also, I think the chapters are out of order. I think some chapters should come before others. Lastly, the book has WAY too much information to be called a general chemistry book. I have been swamped with more information from chemistry than all of my other classes combined. I AM NOT EXAGERATING! Less than half way through the book they try to teach quantum mechanics/physics. It is just a poorly planned book for the coarse. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND YOU STAY AWAY FROM THIS BOOK!!!

This is a difficult book. Not as difficult as my Phys book, but difficult nonetheless. Perhaps that is the way with chemistry, but it was Chang's job to write a book that could be understood and comprehended. He failed. I resigned myself early in the semester to draw the depth of my chem knowledge from a supplements ("Chemistry", by McMurry and Fay and "Schaum's 3000 solved problems in chemistry"). This trully reminded me of physics in a way I had never before expected of a chemistry class - finding answers to problems out of thin air. The material is overly light and does NOTHING to sort through the jibber jabber in a clear and comprehensive way. Note to Mr. Chang: Sometimes it is not enough to be witty and write well; Sometimes students actually want to learn how to DO THE PROBLEMS YOU THEN ASSIGN TO US AT THE END OF EACH CHAPTER! This book is written for people who have another book (or person) to fall back on for a REAL explanation. Raymond (if I may call you that), you should come down to the trenches and see the devastation in your book's wake.

Just a quick note... This book is filled with reference mistakes and inconsistencies. Trying to study for a test, and I'm frustrated with trying to figure out what this book is saying. C'mon guys, this is the 8th edition!!

Two things amaze me about this book:
#1 This book is in it's eigth edition
#2 Prentice Hall actually published this book

Wow I can't believe quality control at Prentice Hall allowed this one to slip through. It has no proof anywhere, rather it just throws equations at the reader and tries to convince the reader through examples. Several key probability and statistics concepts are no where present in this book. I was able to fill in the gaps through prior experience. I think the author must have assumed a very low mathematical capability of the reader which is strange because both business and economics get very mathematical. The data exercises are for the most part uninteresting. Also my copy has serious printing errors on several pages and the binding is weak.

After buying the seventh and the eighth edition of Statistics for Business and Economics. The two are pretty much the same. So, save your money, and fight back the publishing company by not purchasing this book.

I used the 7th Edition in a graduate course in statistics and was frustrated both by the text's poor organization and its failure to present key statistical concepts clearly. I had to resort frequently to other sources to clarify topics that were poorly presented in the Prentice Hall text, and tended to find much simpler explanations outside of the text. The problem sets are particularly troublesome, as many of them do not appear to relate to the section in which they are contained and insufficient explanations are offered in the answer key. I recommend you look elsewhere.

If the author could be more careful with facts, I for one would welcome a second edition, because I enjoyed the first one so much, despite the howlers.

I've never read such a sloppy account of the Surrealists... Ruth Brandon's book is littered with errors and omissions of all sorts. Surreal Lives also suffers from any sense of strong narrative. Brandon leaves out so much that was important to the movement, esp. in the so called 'Heroic Period,' the early days of the movement. She attributes quotes to the wrong people... To name just one thing...

The most unforgivable sin is even though it's supopsed to be about everyone in the movement, it's Breton heavy and doesn't at all write about the striking discoveries being produced and imagined by others at the same time. To me this is a cheap, bloated, cut and paste attempt at history. And shameful because she seemingly dismisses so many important people in the movement (Benjamin Peret, to name just one) with almost no mention at all.

Oddly enough, Mark Polizzotti's biography of Bretion, Revolution of the Mind: The Life of Andre Breton - is THE best, most COMPLETE and COMPELLING history of the WHOLE movement. Please, don't waste your money on the Brandon book - buy the Polizzotti. He makes you feel as if you were there with all those people, while Brandon's tome feels like she sat at a huge desk, littered with books (incl. the Polizzotti one, which she cannibalizes - along with tons of other sources) and made a collage, which just doesn't work at all. Through and through a totally boring account - which was in life so exciting. She made me feel absolutely nothing about people I've revered since my teens. It's cold and totally passionless. Ironic - since those are two qualities the Surrealists themselves abhorred.

This book is awful, riddled with errors and totally boring. I just wanted this review to be a warning. This IS NOT a complete or even good account of the Surrealists! Please - don't wate your money. Buy the Polizzotti - then you'll be dazzled and amazed and completely enlightened and entertained.

Perhaps the author got a little bored with covering the details of the artist's lives. It couldn't have been all action-action-action, they had to write, paint, create sometime. It's when she starts to dive into the murky waters of their disagreements and breaks over the minutae of esoteric intelli-quibbles that the reading drags. Decent in parts, and a worthy education, but a little like taking medicene in parts.

An interesting but not overly amazing look at one of the most misunderstood art movements of the 20th century. Brandon's work functions mainly as a collection of biograpical sketches of the major players of the movement. Forerunners like Tzara, Duchamp, Ducasse are given a fair ammount of time, as are Breton (of course) and Soupault. Other important players are quickly glossed over, like Eluard, Desnos and Peret. Far too much time is given to Dali; although a talented man, he spent very little time with the group.

Brandon's conclusions and insights are few; the one of most interest is that of Breton continually searching for the ultimate anti-artist he found and lost in his friend Vache and could never fulfill himself. This book would be a nice introduction to someone not too familiar with the movement and could act as a good jumping platform towards studying the specific artists that interest the reader most. The writing is clear, and what is explained is done well. More knowledgable readers, however, should move on to other things.

I purchased this book hoping to find out more about these animals and what they were used for around the world. I was disappointed to find that the book really catered to a young audience or someone with a short attention span. O.K. book for children. I ended up donating the book to our local library.

When I bought this, I thought it was for adult readers while the content is more suitable for an 8 - 10 year old llama affectionado. Still an OK guide.

I bought this book thinking it was a serious discussion of llama uses and the details of these uses, it turned out to be a whimsical and sketchy tribute to llamas by someone who clearly loves these animals.

The story of Chopper is very frightening and resulted in a massacre.A person can think may be he is insane but he wasn't like that.He did that as to out-jail himself.Actually he is highlly intelligent as he always strategise whatever he intended to do.He is cruel and behaves as a" satanist".I don't know how come he ende up having a wife.

The story of Chopper is very frightening and resulted in a massacre.A person can think may be he is insane but he wasn't like that.He did that as to out-jail himself.Actually he is highlly intelligent as he always strategise whatever he intended to do.He is cruel and behaves as a" satanist".I don't know how come he ende up having a wife.

I have read all of his books and he continues to astound me with his tales of unspeakable acts of violence and other criminal endeavors.He is truly a fascinating man who i believe is mostly(is the key word)justified in his actions.Adding to this I truly believe that the man is in the unfortunate situation of having the police holding a bias view towards his value to society which is based on past actions.I think that the police where too scared to release the man due to them being scared of him and also if he were to be released the coppers may have to try to stop him,god forbid that