It is suitable for both popular and fine taste. I'm sure you'll have a more-than-pleasant reading experience and a more-than-enough understanding of the hypotetical political leader's hypotetical idiotic behavior in a hypothetical political system of a real English-speaking country. Although it is seemingly a novelized British drama, the printed version of "Yes Prime Minister" makes excellent use of the edge of novel to tell the story. The expression of individual's opinion of a event surely presents how single-minded or even absent-minded the characters are. Even more interesting, there are handwritten notes of the subjects, newspaper cutting of their events, and script of media interview which fully demonstrates the moronic ideas and performances of James Hacker as well as the tactical handling of his boss by Sir Humphrey Appleby. And the intervention, most of the time in a literary perspective and untimely, by Benard Wooley further makes the team more a laughing stock.

If you ask my opinion, in the fullest of time, by means of thorough investigation of both the pros and cons, and not to put too fine a point, it is justifiable to a certain extent to consume a certain amount of time to literally, if not semanticaly to digest the information and mark the word by a person who is in this review using the perpendicular pronoun, I.

Were the "Yes Minister" and "Yes Prime Minister" series NOT part of television immortality, this book would STILL succeed, stand out in its own right as one of the classic political satires.

The authors' conceit is that we are in the year 2050 (or so), and Sir Humphrey's dithering protege, the ineffectual Bernard, is now an eminence grise who has taken it upon himself to compile the diaries of the legendary PM Jim Hacker. Hacker, whose populist, extreme-middle-of-the-road politics make him more a John McCain figure than a Tony Blair, does score the odd coup, as when he foils a nasty invasion of a former British colony. But by and large he is at the mercy of Humphrey Appleby and his bureacratic machine. As he tells he diary, Government has the engine of a Volkswagen and the brakes of a Rolls-Royce. This and other universal truths ensure "Yes Prime Minister" will endure for the ages, and it is a pity this work is out of print. My favorite moment is where Hacker, on the verge of ascending the "greasy pole" of parliamentary politics to become PM, campaigns against a European directive seeking to standardize the recipe for sausages. "I am up to my neck in this Euro-sausage business," he remarks. "Not literally, we hope - Ed" is the parenthetical aside.

Like many tie-ins with British television shows,_YPM Diaries_ is a print version of the show, written in the voice of the characters. And , as is also the apparent British custom, it includes material previously aired. In fact, its chapters are the televised episodes themselves.

But this book goes well beyond the scripts of the shows. It definitely recognizes the difference in the two media and comes up with a lot of new material unique to the book itself. One of the cleverest inclusions is that of handwritten notes between principle characters. For instance, there are whole dialogues in this correspondence format between Humphrey and the Prime Minister which haven't appeared in any other media. Also, the diaries themselves include a lot of original material which amplify points made in the televised versions.

Aside from being an absolutely smashing read, this is an excellent resource for the student of British politics. From this book I got a lot of ideas for term papers which impressed my British politics professor.

I think, though, that the most valuable thing this book will impart is a kind of lens through which to view British politics. I don't mean to oversell the utility of the work, but especially for the American viewer uninitiated in the ways of the parliamentary form of government, YM/YPM truly helps one see how things get done--or undone--in Her Majesty's Government.

As a first year nursing student, I found this textbook to be a very useful tool. It contains many charts and photos to help you to understand and "see" the wonders of the human body.

The editors have put together chapters from several different authors to share perspectives on how to help families reunify when children have been removed to foster care. This book should be most beneficial to persons who are attempting to implement or improve the delivery of family reunification programs. However, there are "jewels" throughout the book that should help anyone working in the foster care setting.

The various authors not only explain why it is important to reunify families when possible, but methods and programs are shared to give case workers ideas of how to improve their services. A great bonus with this book is that it is well-edited so that the chapters are actually enjoyable and easy to read.

Highly recommended.

Powerful Prayers is a Must Read Reading Powerful Prayers provides you amazingly simple examples of commuincating with God through personal everyday prayer. It opens the door to an otherwise complex arena of thought. The discussion between Larry King and Rabbi Katsof is sensitive and thought provoking. The interviews add incredible depth to the discussion. They also legitimize informal prayer, and the many different ways people have found to communicate with their respective spiritual beings. I recommend this book to everyone who is open to exlporing their individual communication with God. It is a must read. It has changed my entire understanding or paradigm in regards to my relationship with God outside of a house of worship.

Unlike most "religious" category books, this book lacks the preachy quality that causes most readers to not absorb the text. This book insightfully breaks down barriers between different religious beliefs and simply brings forth the universal belief in a higher power. The people that Larry King and Rabbi Katsof chose to interview are made more personable and are made more tangible through their everyday prayers, which are similar to ours, and their quest to be closer to God. This book would make a fabulous holiday gift that is sure to please a recipient of any religious background.

Mr. King delved into the foundation of Spirituality and Religion and made simple an otherwise complex and controversial issue. The book focuses on the individual and his or her communication with God, while setting aside religious beliefs. I would like to recommend to friends who are too formal about prayers and to those who maybe agnostic such as Larry King in his book.

The sixth outing for Barbara Parker's legal duo, Gail Connor and Anthony Quintana, is the best yet in this excellent legal thriller series. Gail and Anthony take a capital appeal case with time running out and the system running against their client. With an engrossing plot, intriguing characters, and great pacing, the reader is drawn into the story of this last-ditch effort to save an innocent man (or is he) from execution. As they pursue the case, Gail and Anthony find that the only way to stop the execution is a fraught-with-danger attempt to locate the real killer. If there is any quibble with this thought-provoking study of the death penalty and the legal system, it is that fans of the series might miss its usual Miami locale and also notice that the focus here on the legal partnership of Connor-Quintana leaves little time for focusing on the deliciously torrid side of their relationship. But then, perhaps, that's for the next "Suspicion" book. If you haven't read the earlier books in the series--Suspicion of Innocence, Guilt, Deceit, Betrayal, and Malice--do so. They shouldn't be missed!

After everything that has happened to them in the past, lawyers Gail Connor and Anthony Quintana are trying to make their relationship work. He hires divers to try and find the engagement ring he threw into the muddy pond. Their joint profession brings them closer together when Gail's mother asks her to help the son of an old family retainer appeal his death sentence.

Kenny Ray Clarke has been convicted for the vicious death of Amber Dardson twelve years ago. He has been sentenced to death and the appeal process is rapidly running out. Gail is reluctantly dragged into taking on the appeal. Anthony knows what the mental price on a lawyer the process takes and reluctantly helps her in order to spare her a nervous breakdown. By the time they are fully acquainted with the facts of the case, Anthony and Gail believe their client is innocent, but only have days left to prove their case before Kenny receives a lethal injection.

SUSPICION OF VENGEANCE is one of the author's best Gail Connor and Anthony Quintana novels to date. Barbara Parker has thoroughly researched the death penalty issue and it is more than likely readers on the fence will come away converted to her belief that its too open for human error. This novel is an exciting romantic legal thriller that will have massive cross-genre appeal.

Harriet Klausner

Into NOT enjoying Barbara Parker's 6th outing for the legal couple, Anthony Quintana/Gail Connor. It is certainly a stretch to believe that Connor, a civil attorney, and a sole practitioner at that, would become involved with a death-penalty appeals case. Forgiving that, sit back and enjoy what is Parker's most ambitious and well-written tale of the series!

In it, some of the past jealousy dances over Connor's relationship with her ex-husband do not play a role, and her civil practice and single parenting responsibilities don't dominate the story line, as they have in past outings (this is positive; Quintana's jealousy does not become him). Nor does Quintana appear as self-assured and in control of situations in the "wilds" of northern Florida, as he does in his native
Miami. One of the most important and touching passages of the book deals with his realization and communication to Connor that she is a better attorney than is he, himself, because of the passion and dedication with which she serves her clients.

The client, Kenny Ray Clark, is on his final stretch of death row in Florida for a murder it becomes obvious he did not commit. Central to proving this is the role played by a new character, Jackie Bryce, a local deputy, and Connor's cousin.
Connor's family relationships are the background focus of the tale, and the sense of desperation the group feels while racing the clock to prove that someone else killed Amber Dodson and covered up the murder by blaming Kenny Ray, is palpable. Although there are a lot of victims in this tale, few are as tragic as the Mendozas, a local immigrant family who found themselves in the way of a land grab by the real perpetrator's of Amber's murder. You'll find yourself unable to put the book down as Connor and Quintana peel away the layers of the cover up, in a race against death.

Strong characterization, tense and thrilling plotline, and her signature byproduct of the incredible bond between Quintana and Connor all will heighten your enjoyment of this Parker
effort.

Read all 6, Parker is a terrific storyteller!

Barbara Chase-Riboud, one of the most amazing artists of the twentieth century, challenged many assumptions about what constitutes art, interrogating the viewer with complex and unforgettable images. Unfortunately, the male writers of this book seem unable to properly celebrate this brilliant artist; they do little other than catalogue her "influences", which one might better describe as the incredibly rich variety of artistic discourses of the past, which Chase-Riboud used subversively and excitingly. African and Egyptian influences are obvious, but she was also engaged with baroque art and Surrealsim (but *always* making it her *own*). Perhaps a better book will someday be written. This is an artist all Women should be able to study from, if only she were to become better known.

Barbara Chase-Riboud is one of the most significant and original sculptors of her generation. Her dramatic explorations of literary and historical themes earned her a presence in major museums throughout American and Europe. Barbara Chase-Riboud: Sculptor is a richly illustrated presentation and overview of her 30 hear career as a sculptor and draftsman. Peter Selz and Anthony Janson are distinguished art historians who draw upon their considerable expertise to reveal how history, archaeology, spiritualism, the Baroque tradition, and Chase-Riboud's parallel career as a poet-novelist worked together to influence her work, from the Malcom X, Tantra, Zanzibar, and Cleopatra series to her recent monument Africa Rising -- the award-wining New York City landmark commemorating an African-American burial ground from the colonial slave-era. Barbara Chase-Riboud: Sculptor is a superb and informative addition to any personal, academic, or community library art history collection.

Full disclosure: my nephew's "story" is in this book, as told by my brother-in-law. When my sister gave me this book I was moved to tears as I read it, because she wants all of us who know and love her son "Robby" to understand his Asperger's Syndrome, and its treatments.

AS is a perplexing syndrome, and the spectrum of PDDs is confusing and multi-focal. For parents, families and friends, this book is a wonderful starting point. The book lays it out in easy-to-digest chunks, most useful for anyone seeking to understand the PDD continuum and its manifestations in children and young adults.

It is clear, concise and (except for the parents' stories) unemotional. It will help anyone affected by a PDD to understand the background, the symptoms, the diagnosis and possible intervention techniques. I am delighted that Ms. Malone and Dr. Quinn are part of my nephew's diagnostic team, and that they have produced this excellent book. And I'm glad my sister & brother-in-law have shared it with our family. Without communication, there can be no understanding.

Barbara Quinn and Anthony Malone really wrote a book for the average parent to understand. The book is not bogged down with medical terms that are difficult to comprehend but rather uses terms an average parent can understand. Thank you so much for helping parents help their special needs child.

I read "Suspicion of Malice" because I wanted to keep up with the continuing saga of Anthony Quintana and Gail Connor. They are two lawyers, living in Florida, who have had a stormy romance, and they are trying to get on with their lives without one another. Connor and Quintana are reluctantly brought together to solve the murder of Roger Cresswell, a wealthy young man whom many people hated. Most of the members of the Cresswell family are a nasty, conniving, and greedy bunch, and several of them have a strong motive for murder. Parker's dialogue is brisk and she holds the reader's interest throughout. The ending could have been stronger, but overall this thriller is satisfying and I recommend it.

Barbara Parker cleverly entwines the emotional tension between her two series characters, Miami lawyer Gail Connor and her former fiancé, Cuban criminal attorney Anthony Quintana, with a whodunit puzzle among the vicious rich.

Found murdered in his cousin's backyard after a wild party, Roger Cresswell, heir to a yacht-building fortune, turns out to have been spectacularly unpopular. His bimbo wife was sleeping with the aforementioned cousin, his ill father furiously regretted turning over the reins of his company, his uncle feared discovery of his embezzlements, the uncle's clever wife and her lover, the yacht-yard supervisor, feared that Roger was going to run the venerable company into the ground.

But with all these great suspects to choose from, the police focus on a young Puerto Rican ballet dancer from the New York slums. Though Connor is no criminal lawyer, Quintana's daughter Angela begs her to take on the dancer, her secret boyfriend. Connor tracks down the dancer's reluctant alibi witness (a judicial candidate) and discovers Quintana is his lawyer.

The tension of their recent, explosive break-up is exacerbated by Connor's pregnancy. She has not told Quintana and is considering abortion. And the dancer is seeing Angela against her father's express wishes. But Connor and Quintana manage to team up to clear Connor's client and keep Quintana's out of it - by presenting the police with a new suspect. All this sounds convoluted, even contrived when I say it, but Parker makes it sound quite reasonable.

The detective and legal work is clever and though the rich family is typically corrupt and dysfunctional, the sparks between the two likable protagonists keep things lively. Parker's literate writing style and thoughtful characterizations is highly satisfying.

in Barbara Parker's continuing "Suspicion" series.

The on-again, off-again romance of Gail Connor and Anthony Quintana has the stage set by a murder; each has a client that is on the fringe of the killing, and each has to support each other to insure that the real killer is unmasked.

Dysfunctional is the middle name of each person in the Cresswell family. Each remaining person, that is, because the book opens with the suspicious murder of Roger Cresswell, a killing that keeps tying back to Maggie Cresswell, his sister, who had been a victim of what seemed like suicide in a prior year. Anthony's daughter Angela, returns, getting Gail involved in the criminal defense (not a specialty of Gail's) to defend the boy she loves, dancer Bobby Gonzalez. Although Bobby is entangled in the background of the killing, so many of the Cresswells have motive, and so few of them have any admirable qualities, it seems that Gail and Anthony, working together against their better judgement, must pull the responsibility back to one of them, but whom?

Both Anthony and Gail, single parents and very different in heritage and background, leave the reader wondering about their attraction, and attraction it is, despite their break up in a prior instalment of the series. Although they remain together at the end of the book, it is only with some tragedy in their own lives, which draws the reader even closer to them.

The Miami setting is well-told in Parker's novels, and the romance never interferes with the mystery, just enhances it. A great read from a fine writer!

This was THE book that was supposed to take the lid off the secret SUPREMES. While it delivers in the sense that it offers
up some juicy bits of backstage gossip, it sheds no new light on
the rise and eventual fall of the legendary girl group. The
first two thirds of the book gather momentum at breakneck speed
only to stall in the last chapters. The famous third act curse.
Berry Gordy was the brains. Diana Ross did what she was told.
Mary Wilson partied and boyfriended her way around the world.Flo
Ballard whined and drank.Curtain.The end.What's missing is the
"final" final chapter on Florence Ballard. Briefly addressed in
the book, Flo Ballard did NOT die broke. She agreed to a "secret"
settlement with "someone" and was well on her way to her former
lifestyle. If Mr. Turner was the fixture in her life he'd have us
believe, he should have REALLY delved into that. Where was he then? Someone should write a book about the real egomaniac who
caused all the trouble. It wasn't Ross. How about a REAL Mary Wilson book?

How exciting it must have been to have known Florence Ballard the way Tony did. His experiences with Flo, Mary, and the other one were incredibly great reading. I have been a Supremes fan forever it seems, and this has to be the most insightful book I have read about them yet. The way that Flo handled herself at such a young age may have been misguided, but she stood up for herself, and not at the expense of others. Throughout the book I felt that Tony showed what life at Motown was really like, and if you weren't willing to play the game, you got burned. A must read for any Supremes fan, especially those with a warm spot for Florence.

Tony, I read the book.Once I started Isimply "could not put it down". This story is truly amazing because you can actually travel into time and feel the emotions that three young women felt. Well as for Flo, what a wonderful,giftedtalented and stong young woman.It was such a shame that she never had the chance to explode as the "One and True Diva". I can only imagine that she was the "silent one" to Diana, if only we could listen to them trading the leads. Do not get it wrong, they are both different and very talented, your ears really posess the truth with this. Everyone knows that this was not "a fair game," with many motown artist thanks to Mr.Berry Gordy and the crew. It is true, that if something is standing in a persons way from gaining the success desired for themselves, theylearn easily and efficiently of how to discourage, threaten,steal and destroyones life. If I had the money at this moment, this would be a film in the making. It wouldn't be bashing any of the girls, only to bring Flo up front for this once. So please, make this into a film for us. Thank you for a wonderful story told about your relationships with Flo and The Supremes!!

Shakespeare in this play shows how love is not human but surrealistic. Love does not answer reasonable questions. It is a fundamentally unreasonable attitude that brings the lovers to absurd behaviours negating all logical, political and historical values. Love has no limits even if history will prove stronger and the lovers will be destroyed. Shakespeare beefs up this theme with a language that is so rich that we are fascinated by the words, the symbols, the symbolic value of words and acts. He is particularly rich in his style that is entirely, words, poetry, actions, and even feelings, organized following some simple symbols, particularly numerical symbols. In this play Cleopatra appears as being the core of the symbolism and she carries with her the number eleven that comes from the old English runes with the meaning of fate, of fatal defeat, of a flaw that cannot be corrected or escaped. It is her destiny to bring Antony to his defeat and death, just as it is Antony's fate to be governed by this woman and led to his own destruction because of his love for her. It also shows how the Emperor is able to use this fatal situation in order to capture all powers and to impose his absolute will on the Roman Empire. He seems to be the one who plays not well but with all the assets of the game up his sleeves, and he takes them out one at a time when the situation is ripe for these assts to become the key to is ascension to absolute power by defeating those who may oppose him.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

Cleopatra may be a somewhat ambiguous female character, but I totally loved her, and Bill's portrayal of her. I don't know if he expected the reader to judge her, but I suspect not. The harshest criticism of her comes from Octavius Caesar, who himself doesn't do a single noble thing throughout the whole play. She is fully aware of the fact that she is a sensual, passionate woman- which has no negative effect on her ability to rule Egypt. Her biggest faults are her violent temper (which I suspect is just part of her passionate nature) and her tendency to lie when it suits her (either for sport or for serious politics). Antony (I feel) is actually kind of a loser compared to her. His insincerity runs deep- he marries Caesar's sister in a political move, although he had repeatedly pledged his undying love for Cleopatra. She forgives him, because she truly loves him, even though he doesn't do anything to deserve forgiveness. Antony never fully allows himself to love Cleopatra. He constantly is overreacting to the slightest indication that she might be betraying him or whatever. It is one of these overreactions (combined with an ill-timed lie on Cleo's part) that ends up destroying them both. Even in the end, Cleopatra's death is more dignified and better conceived than Antony's messy and fumbling suicide.

Anthony and Cleopatra is one of Shakespeare's difficult plays, and so I suspect the ratings on the play are low because it's a more mature play than Romeo and Juliet. Here we have two middle age lovers who part of the time are foolish with lust/love and the rest of the time are tough minded heads of state. The "tragedy" is that they can't be both and survive. This is not a play for the young folks, I'm afraid. But if you want some heavy drama where the characters are spared nothing and given no slack, read Anthony and Cleopatra (hint: Cleopatra's suicide is more political statement than a crazy wish to die with Antony). Better yet see it performed by some real actors some time.