very bad book. would not recommmend reading it. He just drags the story on and not very interesting.

This book is wonderful! Anyone with any intellectual ability could see that! :)

If you are looking for a biography of James Madison, look elsewhere. Rutland's subtitle, "The Founding Father," makes it clear what this book is about: Madison's participation in the creation and passage of the constitution and the Bill of Rights. Although it does cover most of his life, the focus is definitely on Madison's role as founding father.

The book deals with the major issues of Madison's political life, often in too minute detail, but does not satisfy the biographical aspects of his life. There is absolutely no mention, for example, of Madison's birth date, or even the year he was born in! Further, the book failed completely to engage me. I set it aside for weeks at a time before I finally finished if off, despite its modest size.

I picked up this book because I was to attend a conference on Madison and wanted to know something more than the murky recollection I had from school of this less well known "founding father." I was fascinated to learn how it came to pass that after initially opposing the Bill of Rights Madison was the guy who actually got it through the first Congress. The early years were interesting, but this book rather quickly turned into a rather bewildering discussion of the ins and outs of trade with Europe and the problems that led up to the War of 1812--which sounded like a totally forgettable incident in American history. Madison was by and large an untalented president--his greatest achievements were complete by the time he was 30--the Bill of Rights and, before then, the Federalist Papers. Maybe the book went downhill with the career of its subject, but I thought the writing could have been a lot clearer and a few sentences of background information each time a new subject was introduced would have helped this book alot.

not like Jefferson & Hamilton or celebrated like Washington & Franklin. My fellow reviewers seemed disappointed in this as a biography. But it was not Mr. Rutland's goal to write a personal story of Mr. Madison's life although his later years were covered quite well. I am glad however, I took the easy way out by listening to the audio version (unedited). As if I was in Mr. Rutland's class as he was giving a lecture. The years after The Revolutionary War, The Federalist Papers, The Constitution & The Bill of Rights, are the real meat of this book. Madison's behind the scenes leadership in Congress was consummate. If we do not appreciate how important he was 200 years later, it seems that he contemporaries did. To his sorrow he was, with Jefferson, responsible for creating the two party system we now operate under. That he wanted to heed Washington's advice against the party system is evident. But he found this advice quickly outdated. As a result Washington, & to a lesser extent Adams were the only unaffiliated presidents in our history. Happily, none of this two-party stuff is cluttering up our Consititution. As Secretary of State under Jefferson & President on his own he was unremarkable. Any one could have mucked things up as well as he did. Indeed his best years were his early years. What seemed to me remarkable was the love, respect & friendship that existed between Madison & Jefferson all of their adult lives. It was an alliance of two great men that never wavered & recreated the "republican" type government of ancient Greece. Mr Rutland was obviously impressed by this relationship & alludes to it several times. I appreciate biographies that teach me something about history I didn't know. How great is this book? Hard to say. But it fit the bill.

"The Bear" by william faulkner was an extreamly slow paced book. Many of the sentances ran on for two pages or so, and became incomprehensable. Faulkner seems to ramble on aimlessly, failing to reach distinct points. There were some good double meanings in the text, but if this is what you like, look at James Joyce. This was a failure.

I thought this was the book that dealt with a bear and a woman forming a relationship. This novel that I am talking about describes very well what it's like. I was quite disappointed with this novel.

First off, the editorial reviews are on the wrong book, 2nd these are cliffs notes for the short story "the bear" found in Go Down Moses' by william faulkner. As for the "the bear," in my opinion it is a very difficult piece to read and i would recommend cliffs notes for it.its good to attempt to read through the actual book, but its a pain.faulkner trails off on the most myriad of details and takes 2 pages to explain something that could easily take only half a page.i've never used cliffs notes before in my life, but i needed them for this book. This is the opinion of an accelerated junior in high school who just wrote a 13 page term paper on this, so you can determine for yourself if this info. was useful.

Well, it was a good idea, but...There are far too many omissions to make this book worthwhile. I can understand why genre novels made into genre films could be excluded--after all, how many people know or care that SOYLENT GREEN was based on a Harry Harrision novel titled MAKE ROOM, MAKE ROOM? Or that the movie COP was based on James Ellroy's BLOOD ON THE MOON? Or that DARK OF THE SUN was based on a Wilbur Smith novel of the same name? But at the same time, how could the authors of NOVELS INTO FILM fail to make reference to Lew Wallace's BEN-HUR? Or Howard Fast's SPARTACUS? Or Jack D. Hunter's THE BLUE MAX? Or Eugene Burdick's and Harvey Wheeler's FAIL-SAFE? Or Pierre Boulle's PLANET OF THE APES and THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI? Or Edison Marshall's THE VIKINGS? Or choose to talk about a failed Richard Matheson adaptation like WHAT DREAMS MAY COME, but leave out THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN? Or forget to include..well, never mind. The list of omissions goes on. Yet the above works were all major mainstream novels of their eras, novels that were made into much-beloved and/or critically-acclaimed movies. These novels into films should have been included--especially since the authors of this so-called "Encylopedia" saw fit to pencil in adaptations of currently-popular--but hardly literary--authors such as Stephen King and John Grisham. I bought the book sight unseen--more fool me. I was cheated. Don't get cheated yourself.

Like other reviewers, I bought this without actually looking at it and I agree that it could have been done much better. It's a very good idea which seems to have fallen down in the execution. To the list of serious omissions I would add: The Ice Storm, The Godfather (!!) Rosemary's Baby, Midnight Cowboy, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Primary Colours, Lady In The Lake, Fear & and Loathing in Las Vegas (if we are talking about Hollywood here.) National cinemas other than American are very poorly represented. The book does acknowledge that it's the 'abridged' edition, and I would not have liked to have to choose what went in and what got left out, but still. The individual essays vary a great deal in usefulness and quality, with some being really very good and others abysmal. In future editions I would like to see more attention given to non-US filmmaking.

It is interesting if you like to read. It is also interesting to see how what were once thought as interesting and new stories are old, recycled from novels that few knew existed.

This book is a disgrace. It's sad to see that any woman would stoop to such a low level as to publicly humiliate herself as well as a well-known author!

I understand that she had an affair with him, but that's it...AN AFFAIR! Get over it !!! It was an dumb-affair. I'm sure that Ms. St. James wasn't so young that she didn't realize what she was getting into!

I just think that it's sad and this book did nothing, but turn a memory of a romance (affair or not) into something that the public didn't need to know about!

Thanks...I'm done!

I was excited to find these tapes at my library and kept waiting for the "magical" love to reveal itself as it did in Waller's novel. Instead, I was told all sorts of "filler", such as what Jana St. James was wearing and what she ate each day. An unbelievable amount of extraneous material to blow smoke over her THIN story about an average affair initiated by a married man. One can only feel sorry for Waller's wife Georgia, learning what her husband was doing the night they gave birth to their daughter. Much wishful thinking on the part of St. James: I didn't see ANY parallels with Madison County, the novel, except that the characters had sex.

Certainly there are parallels to the love story in Bridges of Madison County, however this is a story of two young people who under different circumstances would likely have ended up together. There love seemed genuine but impossible. This is an easy read - and unlike the other reviewer, I do not judge Jana or Bob. As unfortunate as it sounds - affairs do happen.

I took a intro course in Pro/E and I still can't follow this book. The writing is terrible. Plus the index must belongs to some other book. It is very difficult to find anything using this index.