I thought this was a very good Speech book. The book is pretty easy to read, and well laid out.

As both an adventure traveler and a vehicle enthusist this book was a relief to read. Mr. Stephens and Podell relate an experience that I would love to duplicate, an around the world adventure ripe with hi-jinx and romance. In a the current world of SUV commercials preaching get out and drive for fun, these guys show how much you can have without your heated seats and cell phone. I love the idea of packing all your junk in a rustic old truck and heading around the world. Of course it would be great to get all the sponsors that they had, but it would be a little bit harder to be as out of reach today especially if you had to report to the man. This book is fun and exciting and reason enough to quit you job, sell your $35,000 exploder, er Explorer, buy a real truck and use the left over money to start driving. Don't worry you'll figure out how to eat, get gas, get out of trouble and make it home. If you want to come home.

Loved this book the first two times I read it in the seventies and this new publication is just as much fun the third time around. It is suspenseful (will they make it?) and has just enough romance so that WOMEN can find it exciting and wonder, "could I have gone along?" I'm probably too sissy, but I love you guys for doing it. You are men's men and definitely women's men! What an adventure to remember always.

Anyone who has ever traveled anywhere by car (and who hasn't) will absolutely love the adventures and misadventures of Stephens, Podell and crew on this over-the-road around the world trip in a 60's era Toyota Land Cruiser. It's amazing they came back alive!

Every bit as entertaining as the best of Cahill and Bryson but less long-winded, the adventure is related in a page-turning series of concisely written and entertaining passages that will have you howling with laughter and empathizing in pain.

You will love this book!

"The Stranger" is a wonderful little book, filled with deceptively simple language and actions. It's understated, very subtle, and except for the outright atheist vs. church stuff at the end, you've really got to work for it. You can pick it up, read it in a night, put it down, and refuse to be affected...but if you listen, the meaning is in there, deep and dark, not didactic, more like a whisper.

The apparent indifference Mersault carries strikes one as inhuman: shrugging off his mother's death, swearing off the church, agreeing to marry in a heartbeat, and, most poignantly, accepting his fate - a death sentence. But the things Mersault is trying to say through the gaps between what's actually on the page is simple: it's all arbitrary, we're fools on a ball spinning around a star, and contentment is the simplest thing to feel amidst chaos.

Although the murder and the trial, and definitely the funeral, are fantastic moral-bending existentialist scenes, what sticks with you in the dark of night, is as simple as the prose and also as endlessly complex: we're here, we'll never understand each other, we see what's most convenient to see, and we all die in the end anyway, whether or not our tenure here can be marked as "good" or "bad" or "moral". Not the most uplifting read in the world, but literature is a cruel mistress sometimes.

This is one of my favorite books. I first read it in high school and fell in love with it. Mersault (the main character) finds himself guilty of murdering an Arab. The book soon reveals it is his lack of involvement in society that stands trial. I strongly recomend this books for those that are interested in existentialism.

A book about the "Absurd" hero... A man who can only enjoy the moment, with no thought of the future or the past, who does only what feels good at the moment... who is not ruled by the monotonous machinery of the world, who refuses to set routines... and yet becomes entangled in the impersonal machinery of society.

By the way, this book is about as un-autobiographical as is possible for a book to be. Yes, Camus grew up in Algiers and loved to swim, but he was primarily a thinker; he was utterly incapable of turning off his mind and thinking everything through. He philosophy was completely opposed to the Meursault's view of life. Yet, like me, he found in Meursault a certain honesty, of living consistently, without faking emotions and conventions. But it was ultimately against Meursault's attitude that Camus fought in his books and essays.

It is a philosophical novel, and no doubt people will be turned off by anything that challenges them, but definitely give this book a chance. It has more to say than all but a handful of books five times the length of this one. I read it almost ten years ago for school, and have read it a half dozen times since, as well as every other novel Camus wrote... those for my own enjoyment. Put aside that King book for a week and read one of the greatest books ever written.

Deranged is Harold Schecter's true crime history of the fascinating, horrifying life of Albert Fish. The reader must be prepared for graphic detail, which is often scatological and consistently perverse and disturbing. On the surface, Schecter falls short of creating a suspenseful nonfiction novel. His arbitrary historical anchors and tedious inclusion of irrelevant details detract from the coherence of the story. Even so, the extremity and depravity of Fish's behavior create an original, unforgettable glimpse into the workings of a criminal sexual psychopath. I recommend this book to true crime buffs who have not yet heard much about the case of Albert Fish because there are no other books on this subject that I have yet located.

Albert Fish is one of those characters, that no matter how many times I read about, I can't seem to believe that such an evil person existed outside the walls of mythology. Along with the likes of the Ottis Tooles, Ted Bundys, and John Wayne Gaceys, Albert Fish was (as the book so adequately describes), deranged! The author of this book,Harold Schecter, does an excellent job on the research. Not only does Schecter tell the tragic story of Fish's kidnapping of little Grace Budds from her parent's home on West 54th street in New York City, but he tells of the horrific child abductions that took place in Staten Island at the hands of Fish. This book even takes into account of a trolley drivers observation of the old pervert Fish trying to calm a terrifiedchild while taking him to his death. Please read this book with caution. It is not for the faint in heart, and it will open your mind to the evil that is out there in this world.

Mr. Schechter pens yet another true-crime story that is worthy of a reserved spot for any true-crime buff. As the late author Robert Bloch said: "People are only into Ed Gein because they haven't heard of Albert Fish."

So, here is Fish's book. It is unbelievable. One has to remind oneself that this is actually TRUE. This really did happen. I couldn't believe it. A person who indulged in a numerous variety of perversities, sexual fetishes (some way, way too bizarre to mention here!) the unspeakably ghastly aftermath of Grace Budd was reminiscent of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale classic "Little Red Riding Hood". In my previous review of a Schechter novel I said had found myself sympathizing (in a very awkward way) to Gein and actually saw a motive for his madness. In Fish's case I could not sympathise with him whatsoever. He was possibly the most deranged man to ever walk on Earth (in my opinion)...but contrary to what others may think, he was aware of the fiendish nature of his crimes. He planned Grace Budd's abduction with a cool cunning, and killed her in the most outrageous way possible... This makes for possibly the sickest yet most compelling read in the genre ever.

Hats off to Mr. Schechter once more for providing impeccable research and a story with no boring moments in it whatsoever.