A shorter version of this book was published in 1967 as _You'll Flip, Charlie Brown_; it was retitled in 1976 when it was expanded with strips from _The Unsinkable Charlie Brown_. Don't be misled by the title; the WWI flying ace and his endless struggles against the Red Baron are present, but there aren't many of them here. The down-behind-enemy-lines thread with the title quote, of course, *is* here. (How many aces got KP for losing too many Sopwith Camels?) Oddly enough, the 1993 front cover art was of Snoopy as a soldier of the Foreign Legion instead of as the WWI flying ace.

The book has no introduction, afterword, or anything except various strips of the adventures of Charlie Brown, Snoopy, and other members of the world's worst Little League team. Cool. The strips include, among other things, Charlie Brown vs. the kite-eating tree; Charlie Brown at the psychiatric help booth when Lucy's assistant (Snoopy) is filling in; Lucy as arm-wrestling champ; Charlie Brown's brief assignment to the school safety patrol. In addition to a lesser-known thread featuring Linus having talked Peppermint Patty into waiting for the Great Pumpkin (the famous one being the one with Sally), some more conventional letters to Santa Claus are thrown in. Some threads with a point (I can't call them *serious*, since they're still funny): Charlie Brown dealing with Sally when she starts lying to her teacher.

And Linus built armies of snowmen long before Calvin and Hobbes thought of it.

Based on testimony of one of those "psychoexperts," I have not seen nor spoken to my own children for more than 10 years, so I was enthusiastic about reading Prof. Hagen's book. But I was sorely disappointed: from the opening apologia for her "personal outrage," the book is a mishmash of promotional material for experimental psychology & condemnations of anything "clinical." It is poorly outlined, poorly written, badly edited (Restak & Restick in the same paragraph!), and, like so many of her colleagues, she repeatedly misreads Freud's "legacy." Freud, among others in the latter 19th century, sold the public on the idea that human beings could be objects of scientific inquiry, just like plants & animals; Prof. Hagen obviously believes this, and this places her squarely in the company of those she condemns. This is a surprisingly and sadly incoherent book, & Prof. Hagen can never quite explain why our courtrooms are overrun with psychoexperts: not because the experts are liars & the judges are fools but because they & Prof. Hagen sincerely believe that the scientist can explain the mysteries of human conduct by, to paraphrase Sartre, reducing the cultural order to the natural order.

Margaret Hagen is an experimental psychologist who studies human activities. She is very much aware how little we know or can predict about human behavior, and that we know virtually nothing about how the brain works in everyday life. Clinical psychologists, the people who decide about mental illness, treatment, prison confinement, and guilt and innocence in court do not draw on this meager knowledge. Rather, clinical psychology depends on speculations about human behavior going back to Sigmund Freud, and on the intuition of the psychotherapist. In other words, clinical psychology is neither science, nor does it rely on firm knowledge. She refers to therapy and assessment as ineffective, a waste of time. We, the public, the courts, various welfare and other institutions, desperately need to assess and to know what to do with persons, including children, who are emotionally damaged, who commit criminal acts, or are just generally behaving weirdly. Society has empowered the clinical psychologist to make these determinations, to say who is sick, who is guilty, who needs treatment, and how to dispose of the case. The clinical psychologist has no, absolutely no, no kind, of science to base his or her judgement on. We simply do not know how people will behave in future, nor do we understand the working of the brain. "I have said it before, and I will say it again, there are no reliable valid, mental or 'behavioral' tests for suspected child abuse worth a damn In this mythology, the individual is an impotent pawn of his environment and upbringing, and the family is more likely pathological, dysfunctional, and damaging. In contrast, "the ideas of free will and moral choice have vanished from the landscape." (p. 306) Clinical psychologists confidently assert that memories of trauma may be repressed, and will cheerfully help a client or witness in a criminal case excavate these repressed memories. This, despite that fact there is no evidence of repression anywhere in the large experimental literature on the subject. People can forget, they can avoid thinking of the unpleasant past, they may scramble memory, but they will not repress it. In clinical psychology children are fragile and have to be protected from the court, from their parents, and from unhappy experiences lest they be damaged forever. Yet, what we know about the brain, is that children heal more, better, and faster than adults, are more resilient, and can cope with adversity better than adults. This is a very interesting book, and, I think, essentially true as well.

SEND A COPY TO EVERY JUDGE IN YOUR COMMUNITY!! Ms. Hagen has done an OUTSTANDING job of exposing the fallacies of the Psych communities involvement in the legal system. If you are attempting to refute bad "science" this book will help you to understand how to go about it. It will not give you step by step instructions but the understanding of how and WHERE the flaws are will help to create questions and arguments against "SNAKE OIL SALESMEN" (might make a good follow up title?). I am buying a box and sending one to ALL of our judges. They ALL need to know what they are dealing with!

A timely sampling of the issues facing judges, paralegals, attorneys and interpreters when the defendant (in a criminal case) or party (in a civl case) is not a U.S. citizen. Immigration law changes so quickly, however, that some sections (esp. sections on crimes) need updating already.

Primer of Polysomnogram Interpretation is written for the clinician in sleep medicine, but is also useful for the sleep technologist who wants to understand how the collected PSG and clinical data is used to synthesize an interpretation and diagnosis.
The book is presented in two sections, the first of which explains normative sleep data, general factors to be considered when interpreting PSG's, evaluating sleep stages, cardio respiratory parameters, measures of daytime sleepiness and a discussion of CPAP, BiPAP and split night studies. The second section is comprised of eight case studies.
The format Pressman uses in the first section is quite straightforward and concise. For each topic he first defines a clinical finding and gives alternative equivalent expressions. He then explains the general significance of the finding and gives possible explanations for abnormal results. Each section is concluded with several narrative sample statements to be included in the interpretive report. Another useful feature of the book is that the author provides a general algorithm for interpretation of the different portions of the PSG. Pressman has included many samples of sleep histograms along with a method for interpretation.
The case studies portion of the book includes eight cases in which the PSG as well as patient sleep history, sleep diary, evening and morning questionnaires are used to synthesize a report and diagnosis.
The experience of reading Primer of Polysomnogram Interpretation is similar to having an experienced clinician sit down beside the sleep tech and having a record review session. It gives the technologist an appreciation of what the interpreting clinician is looking for and needs to make a good interpretation of a PSG.

The cop had his moments, but on the whole the characters were not very well drawn, and the manner in which they interrelated were slapdash. Maybe it was just typical of the disco era in which this book was written, but I thought the dialogue was atrocious. The puzzle was not all that compelling, and the author's political overtones seemed both simplistic and schizophrenic.

Final verdict: a poor attempt at mystery fiction.

This is a typical Margaret Truman mystery. The plot is simple, the characters are well-drawn, and we get more of Margaret Truman's wonderful insight into Washington. A law clerk at the Supreme Court is found shot to death while he sits in the chair of the Chief Justice. Lieutenant Martin Teller of the Washington police and Susanna Pincher of the Justice Department investigate the murder. They find that the Supreme Court is not the high-minded place they imagined. It is a hot bed of intrigue, backbiting, and politics, especially under a right wing Chief Justice and President. The law clerk had dug up dirt on all the Justices and was using it claw his way to the White House. Thus, we have plenty of suspects in high places. It makes for a tangled web and a relaxing mystery to read.

Murder is not a subject that one thinks of when one considers the somber, hallowed halls of the stately granite structure that abuts the U. S. Capitol grounds. Yet the author makes the crime in the sacred highest court in the land indeed seem plausible. The reader is spellbound throughout the narrative of this page-turner. The insight into the behind-the-scenes working of the court gives even more credibility to this mystery. This is a welcome addition to the spectular crime series.