'+ 've pts
1 ]The book gives an indepth treatment of the topic.
'- 've pts
I just hope for 2 thigs:
1 ] The book shld have got an appendix giving more info on the back ground needed for some of the key concepts covered in the same.
2 ] The book shld have got more links to web sites related to the topic.

I found this book very useful. Especially the case studies presnted in the text.

The Title of Professor Neely's biography of Lincoln is taken from Lincoln's second Message to Congress dated December 1, 1862. It is an inspiring phrase and an apt title for a Lincoln biography. Professor Neely's biography is good and solid in its analysis of Lincoln's life. It lacks, however, something of the eloquence and vision of the title and of Lincoln's words. We never learn why Lincoln considered the United States "the Last Best Hope of Earth" or what that can mean for our country today.

That said, this book is a good introduction to Lincoln and his Presidency. The book skims briefly over Lincoln's life before he became the 16th President. There are advantages to this, but the treatment of the Lincoln-Douglas debates and of the Kansas-Nebraska Act which led to them is too brief to help understand sucession and the Civil War which followed.

The book's treatment of Lincoln's relationship with his Generals and of the strategy of the War is probably the best single chapter. It has something to teach even those who are familiar with the military history of the war. The chapter on Lincoln as a pragmatic politician and on the 1864 campaign is also well done. The book treats the Emancipation Proclamation at length but to me anyway left something to be desired. (The text and some explicit treatment of it would help) and discusses the fate of Civil Liberties during the War and domestic development during the war in good but not dispositive detail.

If you are looking for an understanding of Lincoln and of the Civil War this is a good place to start but not to end. I suggest reading the book together with the complilation of Lincoln's own speeches and writings in the Library of America series.

I really enjoyed this work. I felt it could have been more in-depth, but only so much can be expected from its relatively short length. It is a good resource and point of departure for the Lincoln historian or enthusiast, but I would recommend additional reading to fill in the gaps.

This was a difficult book to put down. Watching these characters travel from street warriors to the football field was heart-warming. It gave one faith and hope that these young men are not beyond habilitation, they need guidance and teachers...and a few found it on a football field. They found something pure that they could be proud of, an excellent read.

The testimonials of the juvenile felons separating sections of the book add a true realistic flavor to the story. I did not want to stop reading the book. I wanted more. In fact, I shed a few tears upon completion of the book

This book goes over tricks that a small percentage of dealers still use. Not that informative. Some interesting tidbits, but I'd spend my money elsewhere.

I highly recommend this book is for anyone considering leasing. Eskeldson does a great job explaining all the basics of leasing including terminology, pros and cons, calculating payments and negotiating the best possible deal. Included are many easy-to-use worksheets and tables. Also covered in depth is all of the sleazy tricks and scams commonly used by car dealers to rip-off unsuspecting consumers. Many of these scams I have personally seen (I analyze leases for consumers and attorneys for a living). Eskeldson is clearly not afraid to tell it like it is. In the book he outlines a fascinating web of investigation and class-action lawsuits against car dealerships and the number 2 auto maker - many of which are ongoing today.

In this interesting and enlightening book, Lee Seldes takes us into a world few of us will ever know. Most of us go to museums and enjoy the works, but we never think of the wheeling and dealing behind it. Seldes first shows us the troubled artist, then shows how greedy individuals will do whatever they need to to scam, lie and steal to increase their bank accounts and inflate the prices of the works they own. We see how Kate Rothko, still in school, must fight multi millionaire art dealers and powerful galleries to get what is rightfully hers, and to see that her father's legacy is presented and perserved the way he wanted it to be. If you're a lover of modern art, the works of Mark Rothko or even to a degree a fan of mystery stories, you'll enjoy this book and continue thinking about it long after you've finished reading.

Ms. Seldes has produced a superb book! This is a must read for anyone interested in Mark Rothko, the Matter of Rothko, or the ugly commercial world of art. While her writings on the lawsuits and the cast of characters are somewhat confusing, it's hard to blame the author because the subject matter itself was confusing! The book was almost hard to believe that it was non-fiction! It had all the intrigue of Swiss banks, Concorde jetsetters, the New York art scene, and tax havens like Bahamas and Lichtenstein -- and it all really happened! I congratulate Ms. Seldes on a very strong effort!

Living on the Edge provides a representation of the bleak and desperate conditions that the typical welfare recipient endures. Mark Robert Rank offers an alternative perspective of those who use the welfare system that contradicts the views of popular media and political beliefs. Through statistical review and a thorough interviewing process, Rank reveals that welfare reliance is not a desirable lifestyle and is hardly enticing. The common belief that the welfare system in the United States offers too much and does not motivate recipients to get-off of the program is dispelled in this book.

Living on the Edge runs through several different scenarios that describe the various reasons one might turn to welfare. Many theories about how poverty and welfare fit into society are presented with a logical compare and contrast narrative included. The book also depicts the daily struggle that an individual or family that is living in poverty must go through and what efforts are made to get-off of the program. After all of the differences between causes and effects of welfare recipiency that are described, it is interesting to read that there are striking similarities between those Rank interviewed. It seems that all of the interviewed welfare recipients would prefer to be financially independent. They also all seem to have the common bond of a dream that their lives could someday be more than what it is today.

The format of Living on the Edge is consistent and clearly written from chapter to chapter, making it an easy read and easy to grasp Rank's main points. I would recommend this book to anyone who wonders what might be going through the mind of someone living through poverty and then turning to the welfare system. This book will provide a view quite different from that, which is portrayed in the mainstream media.

Mark Robert Rank has done an excellent job portraying the realities of the welfare sysetm in this country. It is very interesting to contrast the facts and data about welfare to the popular concepts and stereotypes about welfare recipients. This book takes an in-depth statistical as well as personal view of how, why and how long families get and stay on welfare. The statistics are interesting, the real stories are with the actual welfare recipients. Rank interviewed several different types of welfare recipients and presented thier stories throuthout the book.

It is really amazing to realize that the majority of welfare recipients don't like being on welfare. They would like to have a job as much as the average American. Most of these people have come upon economic or family hardships and the welfare system is a temporary strap to hold them up.

The book presents many ideas which are contradictory to popular opinions and views. This book has really changed many of my views about welfare recipients and those that are economically challenged.

I recomend that anyone who believes that welfare recipients are lazy, unmotivated, and parasites on society reads this book. It really is a wake up call !

Mark Bergo's updated edition -Blonde Ambition- book will guide you from Madonna's early beginnings all the way until the year 2000. The author takes you on a chronological timetable to help you learn more about how Madonna climbed to the top by describing the people she met, the choices she made, the ups & downs, her contributions, and how she dealt with it all.

What I most enjoyed was how he described all the different albums, movies, plays, concerts, and videos including their release date, success in the charts, and ratings-- The appendix also has a list of her albums, films, videos, concerts, plays, and movies to enjoy or gain knowledge of. There are great descriptions of all her producers, lovers, friends, childhood acquaintances, Hollywood contacts, grandparents, and family members.

There is even a picture of Mark Bergo on the inside of the book, which shows Madonna and him talking. There are other photos from her childhood, daily life, screen playing, films (A Certain Sacrifice), performances, videos, meeting with fans, posing with Jellybean Benitez, concerts, movies (Desperately Seeking Susan), pose with Sean Penn, with ex-Beatle George Harrison, paparazzi fight, a day with 1 of her trainers, a pose with Sandra Bernhard, "The L* Kiss", Madonna as Marie Antoinette, and other AIDS benefit events.

From all the books I've read I found this one to have a very nice description of Madonna--although making her look a bit too calculating and manipulating at times. There are lots of descriptions about how she was introduced into the music business, the struggles she underwent to be heard, and how she came up with her songs. Her collaborators were also mentioned as well as many of her close friends who died of AIDS. There are times in the book where you can sense Madonna's emotions, sorrows of her mother's sad death, struggles raising her brothers and sisters, conflicts with her step mother, fights with her dad, and even personal accounts of her first boyfriend.

There was a lot of stories on Sean Penn to make the reader know just how much Madonna was in love during that 3rd making of her album "True Blue". There were plenty of accounts on her different affairs throughout her life but not gory or scandalous like other books I've read. The author maintains professionalism, class, and quality. Guy Ritchie was only mentioned in the last chapter very briefly. This would be a great book for someone who isn't too familiar with Madonna. Already fans will enjoy this as an added compliment to there already collection of popular books. I like how the author ends saying, "Singer, actress, record company president, erotic sex goddess, mother, spiritual guru, and media icon, she never seems to tire of astounding the public." Excellent buy and highly recommendable!

**Note: There were a few spelling errors and 1 wrong year date (release of Like A Virgin says 1994 instead of 1984 in the appendix) on this book but it doesn't change the fact it was a fantastic purchase.

If you are a Madonna fan, you already know most of what you'll read in here regarding Madonna's career history, but the material is presented in a nice, chonological format that makes for a good night of reading.

I think that the author must be a little "square" of a person, given such mistakes as the misspelling of Charles Barkley's last name (here, he spells it "Barclay"). I'm no basketball fan, or sports fan for that matter, but I picked up on that error right away.

In his updated editorial since the original printing, he seems to have soured his attitude towards Madonna. He is a lot harsher on her, and makes her every career move since the Like a Prayer era to be calculated and cynical.

There were a couple of items of Madonna trivia here that I didn't know, but I'll let you find that out for yourselves.

All things considered, this is a worthwhile read for a Madonna fan.

An excellent book for someone who wants to gain an understanding of the Empire and what drove it. The author makes a genuine attempt to help the reader to set aside the biases and prejudices of our age and to see things from a Byzantine perspective. He also calls into question certain myths that are repeated all too frequently in histories of the Empire -- such as the legend that Emperor Basil II blinded 14,000 Bulgarian prisoners. There is no contemporary evidence for this, yet the tale continues to be told. Also, as noted in the other review, Whittow calls into question standard views on the size and organization of the Empire's military resources. I'm not fully convinced by his arguments, but they cannot be ignored. Above all, though, this book is valuable for the attention it gives to parts of the Medieval world that are all too often ignored or forgotten, like Armenia and the Georgia in the Transcaucasus or the Khazars in the steppes of what is now southern Russia. The attentive reader will go away with a much fuller and clearer knowledge of the Early Middle Ages.

Whittow makes the reader re-examine widely held beliefs on the structure and history of the Byzantine Empire. His views on the lack of success of the military structure of the Empire as well as the basic size and financing of the government caused me to completely rethink my impressions of the Empire. I haven't heard of much discussion concerning his views, however, I believe this book will dramatically alter the perceptions of the Byzantine Empire and will cause scholars to rethink their beliefs. Excellent!

Malina is a strange book that provoked my interest in what it means to love and live -- is the love-obsession justifiable? When there is noone else but a single person in your life, because you are just this way, does it mean that there are many people like this one but you have not found them yet. Because Bachmann's stream-of-consciousness style, the book is really difficult to follow, especially the part 'The third man' but once you have the patience to read and think continuously, to be shocked and still know who you are -- it gives an enormous pleasure to know a little more of the world that is inside!

Ingeborg Bachmann is a truly great and underappreciated writer, and this is her masterpiece. It is also the earliest novel I'm aware of on the subject of the lasting impact of child abuse in adult life, written at a time when the possibility of such an experience was almost unspeakable. Her approach is never polemical, but dreamy and suggestive, and the ending is one of the most devastating in literature. Check out her poetry, too.

While practicing the writing style to be used in "The Prince and the Pauper", Twain had some fun creating this little tale of an evening of converation in 1601 when Queen Elizabeth plays host to some luminaries of the era (Shakespeare, Sir Walter Raleigh, etc.). The text consists of notes made from the point of view of a disgusted servant. This is vulgar humor (Twain wrote in his autobiography, "...if there is a decent word findable in it, it is because I overlooked it") and it will not appeal to all tastes, but Mark Twain buffs may appreciate seeing an unusual side of Twain, and it's said that Twain would pick up the text and laugh at it with close friends. I have heard that this fictional story was taken seriously by some people and thus is the source of some odd rumors about Queen Elizabeth et al. The actual story is extremely short, so I don't know how they filled a book with it

This work is one intended for a very small audience. It was originally published privately by Clemens and circulated to his close friends. There are references to it in some of Clemens' biographies; however, this work is customarily not included in any collected works or anthologies. It is one of Clemens' scatological works and was probably scandalous in its day. The work is a historical curiosity; the only original volume I have seen is in the rare books library of Cornell University.

This volume pokes fun at the British Aristocracy of days past. It strongly reflects Clemens' views "On the Damned Human Race" as well as portraying the universal human condition. The humour is puerile and at the same time most satirical. No one who is a lover of Clemens' work can have a complete collection without it.