There are 2 main reasons for purchasing one of the books in this series: you're a "dummy" with respect to the subject, or you're knowledgeable and either wish to test your smarts against the author's or to acquire some ideas about how to communicate your knowledge to others. If I may be so presumptuous as to place myself in the latter category, I'd be hard-pressed to recommend this book. It provides comparatively brief summaries of each of the plays, but little perspective on what makes one play more profound, more respected, more "required" reading than another. A reader might just as easily conclude that *Titus Andronicus* is as important as *Hamlet*; that *Romeo and Juliet* is no less a tragedy than *Lear*; that *Henry 6 or 8* is as well written as *Henry's 4 and 5*. Moreover, the book-cover blurb promises to teach the reader how to read the Sonnets (totalling 154), yet the authors provide no more than 2 glib paragraphs about the sonnet cycle.

The authors' recommendations about films and editions are too succinct or limited to be of much help. (Only the Arden Complete Edition is recommended, an edition with numerous problems.) And there's the question of just how much justice you can do the Bard with language that, unlike his, is unremittingly "flip." But if you enjoy this style, I'd recommend reading first the section on Shakespeare in *An Incomplete Education* to get a better sense of which readings are truly indispensable and most worthy of a reader's time. And if you want more detailed summaries of plays, try SparkNotes, the website created by Harvard students.

For those of us who didn't pay too much attention when Shakespeare was taught in school, this book is for us. It definately helps out any late bloomers who suddenly become interested in the bard. There are many other books on Shakespeare. And they are probably more precise and intelligent but also a demanding read. Shakes for Dummies is as simple to read as any other in the series and well thought out by its creator, John Doyle... Shakespeare scholar. The book includes a basic history of Will and his homeland... and the state of the world at the time of his writings... This helps in understanding the storylines as well... Also in the book is a brief synopsis and commentary on each of his plays, whether they be his comedies, tragedies or histories. One of the best elements of the book is the introduction of "Scorecards". Shakespeares stories can be compared to sporting events but instead of 'getting struck out at third', the player would be 'banished from his kingdom'. So, DUMMIES gives you a fun format for keeping score of all the plays. I guess Shakespeare was not as boring as Miss Garcia made it sound.

This book is brought to you by the same folks who publish all the ". . . For Dummies" books for learning computer programs. I have been known to snicker at these books, as I'm rather computer-dweebic, and don't need computer-dummy books.

It turns out that my next screenplay involves Shakespeare, and before I started writing, I needed to do some research on the bloke and his works. At the local library, I found "Shakespeare for Dummies." I scanned the book, then nearly choked on swallowing a dollop of pride as I toted the book through the checkout.

It's not easy to be expert at something and at the same time to be able to explain it clearly to beginners (or dummies). These authors definitely do have that talent.

Open the cover, and first thing, there's a listing of all of the dude's plays with a one or two sentence summary -- the lay of the land!

The book goes on to cover the life and times of William; explanations of his brand of English, the theatrical world he worked in, etc. Deeper into the book, there are two- to three-page summaries of each play, with recommendations for videos of each play.

The authors' wholistic approach is very informative, and they take a good-natured approach to a topic that could be oh-so-scholarly.

My screenplay, by the way, is titled Learning Shakespeare. The irony of it all.

This book reminds you of the things your grandmother taught you (or should have). Things that are all too easy to forget in the frantic climb to the top. It's a fast, friendly read and a major league bargain at this price!

You will read that book very quickly and get the main points in reader friendly written book instantely. The book is nicely divided in three divisions: Managing Yourself, Managing People, and Managing the Work. Some stories are pretty good, and considering the cheap price and the few hours spend reading it, it's absolutely worth the effort.

an interesting and fun read. wish there was more depth, but definetely good for a trip up the corpoate landscape.

I found this book in a used book store on a trip West. As someone interested in Sherlock Holmes, I picked it up since the price was right. I almost didn't. I once received as a gift a book edited by two of the three editors of this volume, the second two listed here. It was almost unreadable. The subjects of its essays were rehashes of topics done better by other (real) writers or had little connection to Sherlock Holmes, except in name, like one about Sherlock Holmes and God. The writing was questionable at best. And the two editors just can't edit. It looked like another of those vanity press efforts by some local Sherlock Holmes club with more moxy and money than talent. I gave it away as soon as I found someone willing to accept it.

I started leafing through this book before recognizing it was by the same group and the same editors plus one. But I found listed in the contents several names I recognized from my reading about Sherlock Holmes in other books even if along with some of the pseudowriters from the other book. Many of these essays were of far more interest than the earlier volume. It even had some fiction and some humor. And a third editor was listed, the first one listed here, though he came last on this book's title page. But his name should come first alphabetically as here. Curious. On the strength of the other editor and the listed topics and because it was priced cheap, I bought it. I still didn't expect much. I was pleasantly surprised.

Besides a pompous, overwritten, self-glorifying introduction by a man listed as president of the group publishing it, who probably broke his arm patting himself on the back, and a woefully inadequate and trite rehash of Sherlock Holmes's film career, a lot of the stuff in this book is good and some really good. I really like a story explaining what happened to Dr. Watson's wife, written from Watson's perspective like the original Holmes stories. It was well-written and heartfelt. Probably one of the best I've read, and worth the cost of the book alone. In fact everything in this book was better than the other, which I think was published later than this one. Why the difference? Besides many different writers than the other book, I deduced like Holmes that it was the third editor, the one who had no involvement in the other book, that made the difference. Like the dog in the nightime, he did nothing in the other book. So logic dictates he must have done much for this one. Further investigation uncovered that this editor is a professional writer. His name turns up many times if you search for it here. The others don't, not even for the other book they edited. Case solved. The third editor must have done a lot of writing behind the scenes on this book. He also wrote one of the stories. So maybe he did just too good and that's why the other two no longer work with him, or he with them. His being listed last in the book while his name comes first alphabetically suggests some ulterior motive for the listing and later disassociation. Jealousy maybe on the parts of the less talented editors. If they had any sense they'd have hired him to help with the other book and would get him back if they plan to publish further anthologies, especially if they only use the same people from their own club again. They need real writers and real editors if they want to sell much outside their own circle of friends. Fortunately this book has some real writers and one real editor and is mostly very readable and enjoyable.

My advice. If you find this book in a used book store with a price in the low teens or less like I did, buy it. Look too for anything else by the first editor listed alphabetically here. Same for anything by the author of the Watson story, John Burrows(?) I think. Avoid like bubonic plague anything by either or both the second two editors especially if published under their club name "the Illustrious Client's". There's too much over priced poorly written and edited books in the Sherlock Holmes small press world. Thankfully except in part this is not one of them.

The first thing I would like to mention is that this book is not at the level of any of the Sherlock Holmes's short stories, it is worse than the worst Sherlock Holmes's short stories collection (maybe the "His Last Bow," since it had the lowest number of short stories as compared to the other collections).

Let us explore the book story by story:

1. The Horror of the Heights: (3 stars)
This was not the best short story I ever read, said this plainly. It tells about a pilot trying to prove that there is a jungle up in the sky, above all the heights explored by human beings, and that jungle had creatures that like to mutilate humans once they see them. More than that I would be spoiling the plot.

2. The Leather Funnel: (2 stars)
This is even a worse story. It speaks about the separating line between our world and dreamland. It simply asserts that you can see the past in your dreams, provided that you have something related to that past, just like a leather funnel, for example.

3. The New Catacomb: (4 stars)
The first story to my liking. The good feature about this story is that it gives a twist of plot at the end. It starts with 2 archeologists in Rome, chatting about a catacomb discovered by one of them. In order for the latter to tell the former about the location of the catacomb he wanted to know about some private secret. In the catacomb a strange and interesting twist of plot takes place and the story ends in the best manner a writer can bring to end. Do not take me wrong, I figured this twist from the second page of the story, and I hope you do not, so that you can enjoy the ending.

4. The Case of Lady Sannox: (5 stars)
This story introduces some elements of the Islamic orient (the middle east, if you please). It introduces the reader to a reckless gentleman, who is more of a ladies man. He is, as usual to that type of people, always broke. A Turk offers him money to cure his wife in a strange way. What is so interesting in the story? Of course the twist at the end, and that what made me give it 5 stars ... I did not figure it out until I reached 2 pages before the last one.

5. The Brazilian Cat: (4 stars)
This story was not bad at all, it might have been better than "The Case of Lady Sannox," in terms of the plot and characters. The reason I give it less stars than the other one is that Doyle speaks a lot, he explains many things, relevant and irrelevant. It speaks about a broken young lad - a character which appears frequently in the writings of Doyle - who is the direct heir of a miser uncle. He has got a second relative who had just come from Brazil, so he visited him to beg some money from him. There he is introduced to the relatives pet, a Brazilian cat. Saying more would kill the story, and beware, for there is a twist at the end.

6. The Lost Special: (2 stars)
Where did a train disappear? I thought it would give me a very strange way, like it flied in the sky or something, but the way it disappeared was not insightful.
7. The Beetle Hunter: (3 stars)
An advertisement in the newspaper asks for someone very interested in Beetles, preferably an expert. The hero of the story applies and then is introduced to another expert in Beetles; a master, if you please. There is a twist at the end.

8. The Man with the Watches: (3 stars)
An attempt to depart the realm of Sherlock Holmes, and to forsake his way of deduction. Here you must make a big assumption, and if it fits the crime, then it might actually be the right plot. But in this case it is not. A man and a woman enter a train, both of them disappear, and what remains is the body of a different man, what happened? The answer was more than I could imagine.

9. The Jappaned Box: (1 star)
This is totally unworthy of Doyle. I am not going to say anything about it, you read it and see that it might have impressed people a hundred years ago but not anymore.

10. The Black Doctor: (3 stars)
In a line with the Sherlock Holmes's adventures. A brunet comes to town and work as a doctor, he gets engaged to a lady and then, all of a sudden, he decides to forsake everything and leave the town, what is the reason? It will amaze you, to some extent.

11. The Jew's Breastplate: (3 stars)
A Jewish masterpiece is being perturbed. The old manager of a museum steps aside to give the honor to the new one. The new manager is bedazzled with the strange occurrences. There is a twist at the end, but not that admirable.

12. The Nightmare Room: (2 stars)
Totally unworthy of Doyle. The story is about 2 guys fighting over a woman. There is a twist at the end, but it turns everything allover. It is a wicked twist, if I may say.

And anyway, this book is worth reading, you are not going to bored reading it.

As a student reading this book for a class focusing on the French Revolution I found it too dense for someone who has no previous knowledge of the revolution. Doyle packs A LOT of information into these 425 pages. He does not place emphasis on any particular people or events which makes understanding specific turning points difficult. However, I can imagine this book would be ideal for one who already has a thorough understanding of the French Revolution and is simply looking for a new perspective.

The main problem in understanding this book is the enormous number of people and factions involved. The index is vital. Unlike the previous reviewer, I wish the author had insulted my intelligence by assuming I did not know anything; some of the most key events and players are treated lightly, apparently because they are so well known by... everyone other than me. Still, seems solid and is readable, if not gripping.

The Oxford History of the French Revolution, written by William Doyle, is easily the best narrative survey of the French Revolution out there today. Its a long and dense work to be sure, but given the length and complexity of the French Revolution (as well as the events that preceded it and immediately followed it) and Doyle's book is remarkably concise, while still covering all of the important events, personages, developments and issues in ample detail. In truth, it's really quite stunning that a history of just a few hundred pages is able to address not just internal politics, but matters of religion, diplomacy, ideology, economics, society, and war-- and to do so in a manner that flows smoothly and clearly. Some folks, of course, may whine about the book still being very dense or complex... but that's the way the French Revolution is-- and there's just no getting around that if you actually want to tell the whole story. The fact is that the Revolution isa remarkably tangled series of events and can't simply be reduced to a simple easy-to-follow story. That's that's why it actually forms its own subfield within the field of modern European history-- it's that big and and that complex. In sum, Doyle's book is an outstanding work of narrative history that covers its subject thoroughly-- although those looking for more detail on particulars will of course want to consult other works. Very highly recommended as an insightful to those interested in a good solid account of the French Revolution and a reference book even for scholars.

William Hjortsberg's "Nevermore" brings together Harry Houdini, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a serial killer emulating Edgar Allan Poe's stories, and a host of real characters from the 1920s. Sherlock Holmes's creator is in the United States delivering a series of lectures on spiritism, and Houdini is playing his usual role as a skeptic. The two inevitably run into each other time and time again, and they form a friendship, one that is tried to some degree by their different philosophies. While they are going about their businesses, a killer is dispatching victims in ways that are taken from Poe tales. And at the same time, a woman calling herself Isis is performing supernatural feats that Houdini cannot explain away.

If the story sounds busy, that's because it is. The various threads seem to coexist without mingling for quite some time. In fact, the serial killer all but disappears for a substantial portion of the second half of the novel. With the standard suspense aspect thusly diminished, the novel becomes more of a combination of a period piece and an exploration into the two men's obsession with supernatural phenomena. The historical aspect of the mystery often works well, though Hjortsberg does seem to revel a bit much in the minutiae of the period, from cigarette brands to characters. The supernatural aspect does not work, as Houdini is clearly the loser; there is never really any doubt but that spirits exist and influence the world. Also, it should be noted that Houdini's character, while heroic, is also decidedly unflattering, especially in his dealings with Isis.

"Nevermore" begins with a great deal of promise but ultimately fails to fulfill that promise as the threads never mesh entirely satisfactorily. While Hjortsberg writes well for the most part, he never truly unites the several threads, and a few of them are left dangling.

I'd recently read a history of Houdini that described his friendship with Arthur Conan Doyle. The book literally takes the real facts of that friendship and moves them into a fiction--a mystery that entwines fictional and metaphysical situations to create a Sherlockian, theosophian enterprise in the spirit of other books that try to continue the Holmesian tradition, but this time with its author cast as the main detective.

The book takes awhile to pull all its threads together, so patience is required. But, the prose when not presenting dialogue offers a nice change from the usual mimicry of this time period and adds a new touch here and there. Certainly moments when Victorian discretion is not a bother!

As I post this, there are other personal reviews, pro and con, plus a published review that mentions a flat ending. I definitely had to go find my 'complete Poe' to get the last allusion to his work, which wasn't a problem with the other situations in the story that referred to his stories. Somehow, I don't think the image chosen was really thought through beyond its utility to link one used in a Poe story with the real-life situation of Houdini's watery death. But this death isn't part of the story (still a future event). How Doyle's gesture might help, much less what the last warnings of Poe's ghost meant, present confusion.

Perhaps this was an attempt to end this novel like Poe's writings--after everything is explicated, the introduction of a surrealistic image that leaves the reader smack back in the unknown and now left to his/her own devices for figuring how to get out of it. Or...it just could be a case of an author who is also a movie writer, forgetting that he needs a more complete ending, since it's not likely there's going to be a "sequel."

The story went very slow at first and it's really for us busy readers to hold on as it's really hard to get the story line at first. That's why the first half of the story is so boring. But then if you go on reading it, the first half isn't wasted at all and they are all well-planned. Well, but it goes so slow..

This ensemble tale by 15 writers is quite good for the continuity of the tale it manages to maintain, and I would suggest this is a testament to the skill with which some of these authors write. The continuity of skill is not as unerringly high and this is partly because they tried to force certain marquee names in to bits of writing they have not shared with the public in the past, and in at least one author's case, it is good that he has not.

No one does a better job than Roddy Doyle who opens this 15 chapter book and sets a high water mark that the balance of fourteen must either match, approach or miss miserably. Having this particular writer lead off, in hindsight, may have been an error, for the best the reader could hope for was that others would keep up, or keep quite close. And when they did not the chapters are jarringly poor.

The book is worth the read not because the story is unique and clever, it is neither. The story is one you have read variations on before, and as it progresses it runs out of the cleverness it does manage, and only barely at times, and consistently and without pause begins a slow slide to the end. The irony is that the end of the tale, which can be most charitably described as not only raunchy, but just plain poor in its execution, was done by an author that probably had the least claim to be here. Frank McCourt wrote his original memoir that has a firm spot in literary history, its sequel was a shadow of the original, and this chapter numbered 15 will hopefully soon be forgotten. It is true he has sold a mountain of books, but doing it many times is a feat he has yet to prove. Playing anchor, batting clean up, was not the appropriate spot for him here.

A good tale requires more than a pair of marquee names as bookends; it requires two solid sides, not one. The best rationale for reading this book is for the gems of writers you will find in between the two men I have named. This is a case where the whole is much less than the sum of its parts, an interesting exercise, but one not tightly controlled or edited. So enjoy the quality and discard the balance, what is left is much shorter than the 15 chapters but you are sure to find several new authors you will follow with great satisfaction.

Yeats Is Dead! is the collaboration of 15 Irish writers all contributing a chapter to what must be one of the strangest mysteries ever (if you can call it a mystery). Wherever outcomes would seem predictable, the next writer reverses the tide of the story. Chapter 2 mentions none of the characters that Chapter 1 does, for example, and whenever a character is being built up they seem to be killed off by the next writer. One point where its a ridiculous turnaround is chapter 11-12. Chapter 11 ends:

"Paschal Greer was all out of options. So he did what he should have done many weeks ago. He stepped, forwards, took Grainne O'Kelly in his arms and kissed her. Now there was no more need for words."

And Chapter 12 reverses it totally:

"Well, now. Flip it now. That's just the last straw, thought Sergeant Greer as Inspector O'Kelly punched him bang in the kisser just as he was about to slip the tongue in."

The book is full of mirth and its set-up allows to make what would otherwise be a less good book into a great one. 4 stars.

Fifteen Irish writers take their turn (one chapter each) at ratcheting up the silliness while developing a story centered on the discovery of James Joyce's final unpublished work. Organized crime, organized crime fighters, and Irish society in general take on a generous helping of ribbing while each author does his or her best to out do the previous. What is funny is how many of the authors take what was written before and then throw in a bizarre twist. Or just simply kill off a character nurtured and developed by a previous writer. One poor soul about halfway through makes some attempt at stabilizing the story, only to be completely blown out of the water by the next. And yet at the same time, a couple of gags presented near the beginning of the book find their way into every chapter up to the end.

All in all it is a very fun collection of work, and edifying as well in the sense that the reader may find a new author or two to try out after putting this one down. Because of the nature of this type of work, naturally the writing styles and quality vary greatly from one chapter to the next. This fact in itself will disturb the reader that attempts to take the novel too seriously. Although why this feat is even attempted when you are reading about a ginger haired young Irishman who likes to speak in American ghetto slang is beyond me.

I thought that the book was rather stupid and based on false informatio

I thought this book was very one-sided. I am a history major and non mormon but have studied actual events and this book is obviously meant to push an anti-mormon agenda. There is no proof that Brigham Young was ever a murderous person, or would have any reason to orchestrate such a terrible event. I don't think its a good idea to look to disgruntled ex-members of a religion (like previous reviewers) to get information on such sensitive subjects as this one.

A publisher will usually print the most glowing and/or most prestigious reviews of a book on the outside back jacket. The fact that those willing to be quoted in review of this book should have led me to look elsewhere for a beter account of this terrible event.

The emotive loading of descriptions of "stares" and "looks" by Mormons as these poor souls made their way from Salt Lake City to Mountain Meadows is but one example of poor hyperbole (with no adult survivors, you have to wonder where these, and other, descriptions came from).

Did the LDS members participate in these murders ? Absolutely. Did the LDS Church do anything to prevent the event or to investigate it afterwards ? Certainly not. Did the LDS Church order these murders ? The consensus of mainstream historians is probably not but you wouldn't know that by reading this book.

This book is more about the author's concerns with the LDS Church and less about the actual murders at Mountain Meadows. The LDS have much to be ashamed for relating to the murders without having someone "piling on".

I would suggest Juanita Brooks' book on this subject for a better read.