Gus Jones, the once successful author and writing instructor of Geoff Schmidt's WRITE YOUR HEART OUT, attempts to reestablish himself through his last manuscript. In developing this writing manual, however, he examines the decline of his life as he offers his own experiences to illustrate how one should write well. We see his yearning for understanding from those who would read his manual (his "dear readers" should feel compassion for him) and his near-tragic stature as well; he never fully understands all the contributing factors of his failure, although he unwittingly leads us readers to see them.

Schmidt has written an admirable book with accessible complexity. The novel appears to be a manuscript of a writing manual. Yet, Gus Jones habitually breaks his own rules in the manuscript. Further, we learn from the "Foreword" that a prominent, award-winning author, Andrew Shay, has decided to bring about the manuscript's publication. Shay, Jones' former student, has not only played prominent roles in Jones' life, but he also admits to some manipulation of the manuscript in preparing it for publication. It is difficult to resist offering spoilers in this review in order to demonstrate the intricacies of the relationships among characters; I'll just say that reading the novel again offers new rewards.

Of course, it's good the first time through. It's a spot-on parody of writing manuals. It offers rich character development, undercutting Jones' assertion that the "writing of the future" will rely almost solely on plot. It also conveys the challenge of facing a blank page as honestly as it depicts the desire to revise not only our work but our mistakes. I recommend this book highly, but I think writers and aspiring writers will get special pleasure from it.

And if you wonder whether the book is convincing, just notice that Amazon.com has attributed the afterword to a fictional character.

Geoff Schmidt wrote an amazingly funny and sad and good and everything else I can't think to say novel. And the parody of a how-to book never became mean-spirited. I heard him read recently, and he cracked me up. And then he made me very, very sad. Read this one folks. Get your hands on it as quickly as you can.

I had Geoff Schmidt as a teacher and sort of a mentor, and have waited for this book from him for quite awhile. Now that it is here, I don't really know what to say about it other than to recommend it to others.

An epic storyline and awesome artwork make this a must have for any fan of the Generation One comics. Buy it!

This Transformers graphic novel collects Marvel comics US Transformers#75-#80! This comic books were written by fan British fan favorite writer, Simon Furman! The Artwork was also done by British fan favorites, Geoff Senior and Andrew Wildman! They were the creative team behind the success of the Marvel UK Transformers comic books series! Transformers#75 features stunning artwork by Geoff Senior! Unicron arrived to destroy Ceybertron! Many Autobots and Decepticons die! What happened to Thunderwing and the Creation Matrix?! How does Scroponok handle threat of the Chaos-Bringer, Unicron! How does Powermaster Optimus Prime ultimatly stop Unicron from destroying Cyberton?! The Next four issues lead to final issue, Transformers#80! The Civil War is over! But how do the Autobots stop the Decepticons Without their leader Optimus Prime to lead them? Who is the Last Autobot and how is he responsible for the destruction of Cybertron and Optimus Prime's ressurection?! Find out! Buy these wonderful Titan books! Highest Possible Recommendation!

This book is a thorough, well-thought-out reference of major motion picture directors. It's organized like an encyclopedia and in every description of a director are references to other directors in bold face type. The idea being that after reading a section on, say, Woody Allen, you could then go to Frederico Fellini, who was highlighted in Woody's bio and so on. Excellent book. I can't understand why it was taken out of print or why it might not have sold well.

This film guide is packed with witty, engaging and wonderfully analytical writing by some of London's most capable film critics. Each film is presented with a short, terse description (larger than those given by Halliwell/Walker and Maltin, but shorter than Ebert's for instance) written by one of over 200 contributors -- the good thing about having so many disparate voices is that readers are bound to find one or two with whom they really connect, those critics that share their preferences in more ways than not. My own favorite, for instance, is Geoff Andrew, one of the few critics I've seen that admires Malick's "The Thin Red Line" for the masterpiece that it is.

One thing that may put off some readers is the lack of star ratings given to certain films. This is not necessarily a bad thing since it forces readers to read the passages instead of relying on the short-hand rating that can't capture subtle nuances about a critic's opinion of a film.

The book also has comprehensive indices where films are listed by actors, directors, genres, etc. Another bonus is the Critics and Readers poll results which lists the favorite 100 films of all time from both groups.

There's no denying that this is a terffic book for casual flipping as well as serious research. It's surely a keeper!

OK: first things first. What this book is NOT. This book is NOT one of those volumes filled with 1-4 stars which rate each movie and let us know which is available on DVD. It is also NOT one of those volumes written by a cheesy, so-called critic who, simply because he's got good hair, is allowed to put thumbs up or down on movies and plays for your local tv station.

What IS it? It is the 9th edition of a 1500+ page, soft-covered film guide written by more than 200 British film critics.

"Time Out," itself, is the best guide to what's playing and what's happening in London (and, more recently, New York City). This weekly magazine includes film reviews and the "Time Out Film Guide" is the latest collection of those reviews.

The movies are listed alphabetically, but at the end of the book we are treated to a list of "Time Out's" readers' top 100 favorites, obituaries for the year 1999-2000, and a section on how to find movies on the web. There are also 15 appendices grouping films by type. i.e. horror movies, musicals, swashbucklers, etc. And then, along with several other indexes, one that I've not seen in any other periodical or bound collection: it is a general subject index. Interested in finding a film that was adapted from the works of Bertolt Brecht or movies that feature the British Museum, a list of Israeli, Iranian or Indian films, or perhaps you need to find movies about child prodigies---this is your source.

In all, 13,300 movies are reviewed, with very strong coverage of independents and international films. And it weighs less than my cat. Highly recommended.

I don't want to criticize Leonard Maltin, who's a bright guy with good taste by and large; but this is the film book to buy if you have to buy only one. The English critics for Time Out cover a huge range, including work that has barely made it out of the festival circuit but which richly repays attention--Hou Hsiao Hsien's films, for example, the new Korean cinema, American indies like "George Washington" and the lesser-known Iranian offerings. There were odd omissions in the ninth edition--lots of mediocre Disney, usually overpraised, and nothing at all from Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli; Hollywood treasures like "The Good Fairy" left out; but that's to be expected in any reference book. And the comments are sometimes a bit boosterish and sometimes a little churlish, but generally they're on the money. Compulsively readable, and essential next to the DVD player or digital cable.

Knights, Castles, Medieval Life: Boring. I love Eyewitness books and I like a lot of the Water Eyewitness books, but Eyewitness books like Knights, Castles and Medieval Life just don't appeal to me. Eyewitness Medieval Life gets 1 star because in about 1 or 2 places in the book it is kind of intresting but other then that this book is very plain and boring.

I have enjoyed several of the Eyewitness Books, ("Like a mini-museum between the covers of a book" according to "The Los Angels Times Book Review"), and picked up this one because I was reading Michael Crichton's "Timeline." That particular novel involves time travel back to Medieval times, and while the book involves descriptions of clothing, castles and weaponry, and a few sketches, I was looking for something that would help visualization. So "Medieval Life" was a virtual gold mine in that respect.

Andrew Langley covers medieval Europe from life on a country manor to the crowded streets of a developing town. We see how peasant's dressed, how medieval beds were constructed, their cooking utensils, and how to build a cathedral. Langely pays as much attention to the work of stonemasons as he does to jousting knights and how to guild letters on manuscripts. In short, you get a little bit of everything. There are two dozen sections covering running a manor, holy orders, and medieval music. This certainly helped me visualize the daring and dastardly doings in Crichton's novel. There is something of a resurgence of interest in Medieval times, which unenlightened folks used to refer to as the Dark Ages (darn those Renaissance revisionists), and books like "Medieval Life" amply illustrate why this is the case.

DK eyewitness books are some of the greatest non-fiction books around. The distinctive white background and high-quality photography gives this book an edge over any other nonfiction picture book. And -- these pictures are real! They're beautiful museum-quality photos of all things related to medival times, accompanied by informative captions and text.

Learn about medieval life, from peasants to rich folks, their clothes, food, music, etc. The strength in this book lies in the photos, however, and this book isn't an exhaustive history of medieval times. Rather, it serves as a hook to interest people, and induce them to dig further, while giving them a bit more knowledge.

If you know someone (young or old) who is fascinated by medieval times, then you must introduce them to this book!

Since these books aren't labeled, I thought people might want to know that this book is a reprint of the Transformers Generation 2 Comic Books Issues 7-12.

This book would be ideal for a college film class, as it discusses the merits of many famous directors as well as some you may not have known were so significant. The brief, one-page descriptions get to the heart of each director's significance. One still from each director's work exemplifies the point the author is making.

These descriptions made me want to seek out films by the directors. I am very interested in researching some of the lesser known ones in the book, based on the author's observations. This book looks at film as an art form and gives a glimpse at each director's personal style and contribution to the art form.

However, if you are looking for an in-depth study or a pop-culture overview, the brevity may leave you wanting. What you won't get is a complete survey of their careers, or lots of sensational stories. Those are best left to tell-tale bios and tabloids. This book is strictly about the art and artists. Highly recommended.

The worth of this book is the great visual quality to it. Every page has a film still regarding which director is being discussed. I do agree with some earlier reviewers on the writing's poor quality. The author seems to give his own opinions rather than actually examine the film director. Just read the section on Oliver Stone, he comments on Stone's style, yes, but then the whole writing is just made up of the author's personal thoughts on Stone. There isn't detailed examination of any director's work. But it's still a very interesting book and I recommend it to those who already know their stuff regarding cinema, this will just be a pleasant breeze for them. And the photos are wonderful especially the stills for Fritz Lang, Oliver Stone, Martin Scorsese, Akira Kurosawa and Sam Peckinpah. There are moments when the book is fascinating. There are some pictures you just can't keep your eyes off of which display how beautiful and rich cinema can be and how single images in a movie say a lot. Film buffs will like it, beginners, I suggest you a read a bit more before taking this book seriously.

Simply put, this is exactly what it says with one page sections for each entry as well as a still for each as well. Though the comments are great, the filmographies are a bit light. Some glaring omissions however, and I'm going to list a bunch for you so you're forewarned:

Ron Howard, Sam Raimi, Peter Jackson, Joel Schumacher, Robert Rodriguez, Wolfgang Peterson, Chang Cheh, Atom Egoyan, John McTiernan, Tsui Hark, Tony Scott, Michael Bay, Paul Verhoeven, Steven Soderbergh, Robert Wise, Darren Aronofsky, Hayao Miyazaki, Katsuhiro Otomo, Tom Tyker, David Fincher, Don Bluth, Richard Donner, Blake Edwards, Rob Reiner, Ivan Reitman, Kevin Smith, Alex Proyas, Victor Fleming, the Farrellys, the Wachowskis, the Hughes, John Hughes, Chris Columbus, M. Night Shyamalan, Ken Burns, Paul Thomas Anderson, Wei Lo, the Zuckers, Chuck Jones, Frank Oz, Jim Henson, John G. Avildsen, Kenneth Branagh, Cameron Crowe, Brad Bird, Michael Moore, Neil Jordan, Don Coscarelli, Ralph Bakshi and director's making note since publication like Christopher Nolan, Guy Ritchie and Bryan Singer and many more, making "Another 250" an easy task I'm sure.

I bought this book for my trip to Kenya Uganda and Tanzania. I thought that I might want to travel to Ethiopia or down to Zambia and Zimbabwe....this guide is much too condensed to be helpful, and most travelers I met hated this guide and would borrow or end up buying the LP East Africa guide. You would be much better off buying a regional guide rather then this monster. Just the weight of the book alone isn't worth carrying around with you. I actually ended up ripping this book to shreads and keeping only about ten pages of it then buying the more in depth East Africa Guide.

Don't get me wrong, I love the lonely planet guides. Just not this one. I can whole heartedly recomment the East Africa guide and the Trekking East Africa guide.

This book, "Africa on a Shoestring, 9th Ed" has a broad coverage; although its chapters are not as detailed as many tourists would expect them to be.
Again, this book would have been of better psychic value, had its authors showed confidence in the sections they dealt with. Its 'information' became a wet blanket for me. Many readers who intend to visit African countries are likey to be discouraged by its relentless pessimistic approach. Its outlook is more critical than 'touristical'. The general impression is this: "something good may not come out of Africa". That is shameful! The term "bush-taxi", which was used over and over again, in lieu of a more cordial 'local-taxi' sounds offensive.
I think that if written (or revised) without assumptive bias, this book would be of better quality and value to its users.

Africa is large, and it's hard or impossible to concentrate so much information and advice into one book. Yet, Lonely Planet - as always - managed to do this with great muster. Unless you have time and money to buy the many LP guides to single regions and countries of Africa, this is the book you want before you even plan of visiting the black continent !

Even at the time of its release (1993-94), Kieslowski's 'Three Colours' trilogy (in which the ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity embodied in the French flag are ironically applied to such dilemmas in modern life as grief, communication in a media-saturated culture and post-communist capitalism) was seen as the last gasp of a 'world cinema' auteur tradition that had flourished in the 1950s and 60s, but had become virtually moribund by the 1980s. At the time, however, reviews were mixed: some critics were in raptures at the rare, spiritual power of these films, treasuring their exploration of inner lives, and holding them as a Fine Art stick with which to beat the commercial inanities of modern Hollywood; others decried Kieslowski's rejection of a political cinema, his retreat into a self-indulgent, decorative, bourgeois-currying aesthetic of the individual.

Geoff Andrew was, from the start, one of Kieslowski's most ardent acolytes, but his study of the trilogy is wholly inadequate as an analysis of Kieslowski's complex art. Film editor for listings rag Time Out, Andrew doesn't progress beyond the insights offered in original newspaper/magazine reviews, and his prose is littered with the kind of quotable hyperbole designed for snipping from articles and pasting on blurbs and posters: 'an extraordinarily affecting triptych', 'deft black comedy', 'Kieslowski's greatest achievement'. The whole point of this BFI Classics/Modern Classics series was surely to go beyond the platitudes of contemporary opinion, and put the works in some kind of context or framework.

Andrew's study is the kind of bland, untheoretical fanzine that used to pass for film criticism in the 60s - the films are treated as simply the poetic inspirations of a great auteur. There is no attempt, for instance, to see how issues such as finance might affect certain aesthetic decisions (casting, location etc.), or what the contributions of other personnel might be. Kieslowski's intellectual and cultural heritage as a Pole, a reader and a film-maker is ignored as if he was a singular genius who emanated from the ether, untouched by environment, circumstance or influence.

After a brief sketch of Kieslowski's pre-'Three Colours' career (which is extraordinarily reduced to the level of films anticipating the trilogy, rather than major works in their own right), the 'analyses' of the 3 movies are actually mere synopses, while the 'critical' chapters, charting thematic and formal connections, and links with Kieslowski's previous features, never gets beyond mere listing, never coheres into anything resembling an interpretation. The density of these playful, ambiguous, deeply ironic films is reduced to the trite, touchy-feely Disneyesque message 'Love conquers all'. Worse, the films themselves are discussed as if they were mere screenplays, in terms of plot and character, as if they were books; anyone who has seen a Kieslowski picture will know that these are the least interesting elements (or, at least, that they are undermined by various formal and narrative procedures), and to properly interpet Kieslowski, a detailed, informed account of his style is needed. On the DVDs of the films there are interviews with his editor Jacques Witta, and masterclasses from Kieslowski. These interviews show how profoundly meaning derived not from plot or character, but from complex decisions about editing, timing, rhythm, colour, texture, framing, sound etc., about how material that was shot but didn't work in the editing suite could be abandoned or rearranged. Anyone who wants to gain a greater understanding of these elusive films would do better to skip this book and get the DVDs instead.

First, beware the cybershopper: this is an *extremely* slim volume. The contents make up a scant 80 pages. Thick, glossy paper quality, which showcases film stills extremely well, and a six-page interview with Kieslowski at the end, but the writing is less than satisfying. Andrew tends to run to extremes - most of the time his "analysis" consists of painstakingly assembled narrative details from the three films (expounded at length over individual synopses of the three films), and when he does take a shot at analysis, he tends to draw grand and general conclusions for which the evidence is found wanting. The author prefers to rhapsodize about the role of chance and destiny in the Trilogy, when an introductory discussion regarding the precise meaning of the *title* and how it is expressed in the film might have seemed more proper. In a sense he can't be blamed for this, since this is his own take on the trilogy and he is free to think whatever he thinks - in fact, he apologizes early on that this tome represents a non-definitive (meaning personal) take on the trilogy from the viewpoint of an "unrepentant admirer". However, in this sense each and every passionate viewer of Kieslowski could have written his or her own book, with no more and no less merit for publication than Andrew's. In sum, if you are already initiated into Kieslowski, there is nothing in this book that a good second (or third or fourth) viewing of the films will not give you (but to be on par with this author be prepared to hit the"pause" button every five minutes - gotta spot that portrait of Van Den Budenmayer's on the judge's desk!), and if you are a novice, this is not the book to start with. Watch the films again, carefully, and let your mind draw its own conclusions.

If anyone has reservations about delving into the "What does it mean...?", this book is a great safety net, or better yet, a guide. There are very thoughtful analyses of the movies on an individual basis as well as a single trilgoy.

The bio on Kieslowski is very brief, and there are few mentions about the actors and actresses themselves. But a small trifle...