On the Firing Line: The Publi Life of Our Public Figures written by William F. Buckley, Jr. is about the interviews Buckley had on the televison show "Firing Line." Lasting for twenty-three years and hosted by Buckley, this book contains parts of those interesting shows.

You'll find a whole host of dramatis personae in this well written tome. As with the televison show, this book has concise and cogent reviews as Buckley tries to interview the men and women who actually think seriously and rigorously about the way we govern ourselves. I found a dry wit and humor in spots all to entertain, challange, inevitablely chiding at times, but always wickedly brilliant.

The list of people in this book reads like a who's who and covers the major issues of our time, as Buckley discusses , uses rhetorical tactics and techniques with sometimes unpredictable results. You will laugh is spots as hilarious dialogues engage you. This is a valuable witty and learned tome with discourses making wonderful reading.

If you were a fan of "Firing Line," then you'll really like this book complete with Buckley's own annotations giving this book a flavor all its own.

Got to love the Coens, and thheir style of filmmaking. Read it.

This is a terrific book for anyone interested in the Coen brother's films, or indeed anyone interested in the filmmaking process. While the book is true to its title, other Coen films such as 'Raising Arizona', 'Miller's Crossing' and 'Barton Fink' are also briefly discussed. Along with spotlighting Joel and Ethan's work practises, the book looks in detail at the storyboards, cinematography, set and wardrobe design on 'The Big Lebowski'. Of particular interest is the comparison of still frames with their orginal storyboards during a detailed breakdown of 4 Lebowski scenes. Also appreciated is Robertson's practise of actually explaining many of the film terms used is the book, recognising that not all his reader's are Directors!

I leave off a "star" only because viewing Kentridge's drawings can not substitute the experience of viewing his films. Indeed, looking the charcoal drawings I wonder at what stage of the sequence it is in. Is this the last step in the drawing? Looking at a drawing outside of its time base can also be a positive. I love searching the surface for smudge marks and erased hands and arms. His drawings end up being a record of movement (something that most single drawings fail to capture). For anyone who doesn't know, by the way, Kentridge animates his charcoal drawings using filmic stop motion techniques. The results are amazing. Anyone interested in drawing and painting, the birth of early film, and South African Politics: here is your artist.

William Kentridge is a white South African born in 1955. He is best known for animations, based on large charcoal paintings, which have as their subject the complexity of living a meaningful life in the warped society of South Africa.

Kentridge makes the films by working on the charcoal paintings, then clicking the film camera one frame at a time. He then walks back to the painting and works on it, before exposing another twenty-fifth of a second.

Kentridge is articulate and interesting and has established himself as a great artist in the tradition of Hogarth, Daumier and the German expressionists. His exhibition, which closed here in Los Angeles last week, was breathtaking. This book is the catalog of that exhibition.

When you have a detective novel that starts off with the characters arguing about the believability of detective stories, you know you're in for a self-conscious take on the genre. Many of these sorts of parodies and satires fall flat because they either fail to include an interesting mystery or they've obviously been written by someone who doesn't really know or even like the genre.

Leo Bruce's "Case for Three Detectives" doesn't fail, and for two reasons: 1) Its pastiche of three famous detectives -- Lord Simon Plimsoll (aka Lord Peter Wimsey), Monsieur Amer Picon (aka Hercule Poirot) and Monsignor Smith (aka Father Brown) -- is very funny and very clever, and 2) the author obviously loves the genre and respects its conventions even as he pokes fun at them.

There's a fourth detective involved in this case -- the local police official, Sgt. Beef. Beef represents the seemingly slow-witted officer who always jumps to conclusions in Golden Age whodunnits and is always shown up at the end by the brilliant amateur sleuth. In "Case for Three Detectives," however, the beer-drinking, darts-playing, unpretentious Beef gets some revenge for his literary type, as he gets to show up the three geniuses through use of plain ol' common sense.

With four detectives in this book, you get four different solutions to the crime, all based on the same facts. Each solution is ingenious, in its own way -- although only one can be correct, of course.

There are a lot of inside jokes waiting for readers of Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers and G.K. Chesterson, and for these readers I give this book four stars. You folks will really get a kick out of this novel on more than one level. Bruce does a wonderful job capturing the voices, attitudes and styles of all three famous detectives.

For those of you who don't like the old-style "puzzle" mysteries, though, and prefer the more modern style of psychological intrigue and suspense, you might not enjoy this book quite as much. I will say, however, that it reads like a shot (you can easily finish it in one sitting) and so the time investment isn't too great, even if you're not too familiar with the mystery style of the 1920s and '30s.

For those of you who miss the Golden Age writers, this book will be a real treat.

(One complaint -- the copyediting of this edition is, well, pretty bad. There are a lot of typos. If you're really bugged by this sort of thing, this edition might distract you a bit. I don't think they're the type of errors that actually slow you up while reading, so they didn't bother me much and thus didn't affect my four-star rating. Your call, though.)

this childrens book is filled with some of the most wonderful sketches and art work of indians. this book is not true to fact . But it does have an easy to read interesting story line that shows the culture ,wisdom and greatness of some wonderful indians in history. It so briefly covers the indians from the east to west coast,with some very interesting information on how they lived,what they wore and thier beliefs. I liked this book.And for a book published in 1954 it is really well done.

Transparent characters, a cliched and threadbare plot, and writing so stilted it would be easy to assume the author is fresh out of grade school English class. His glaring lack of drama sense is only surpassed by his morbid lack of grammar and syntax. Mr. Cooke's work is a pox on the self-publishing industry. Don't waste your money, and let's hope Mr. Cooke doesn't give up his day job.

The review below is a bit harsh.
This is hardly great fiction, but I couldn't find any grammar or syntax problems. The characters are shallow and the plot(if you can call it that) is predictable. But I have read worse(books by Rep. Peter King and Saddam Hussein come to mind).

Despite the problems, this was only the author's first attempt at fiction and it does lay the ground work for his second, and much better book, The Evil We Do.

This book was reasonably entertaining. The characters were interesting and it was hard not to care about the outcome. I wish the author hadn't left us guessing.

Purchased on a whim while on a trip around the web, I could hardly put this tome down: it was like watching a train wreck off a cliff, or more like watching the last few seconds of a bug's life as he speeds toward the windshield of his own ignorance, as Mr. Cooke stumbled from point to point, slobbering bile along the tracks of his plot line. It is not only lacking in drama, structure, and grammar, Mr. Cooke seems to have some sort of manic obsession with the "fictional" disturbed priest of this "book". It is no wonder that this self-indulgent tripe is self-published; no real imprint would have it. If you were in need of combustible materials to keep you warm on a winter's night; I couldn't recommend The Evil We Do any more.

The "reviewer" from "St. Petersburg" is bitter because he probably disagrees with the political and religious views of the author.
This is a very good book with a great plot and fascinating characters.