This was a very good,interesting book,with a mystery.Is the main characters friend a real man or a ghost?

Few will read this booklet for entertainment, but if you're looking for a pocket reference on the full range of available antibiotics, their selection, and uses; this is it. -bob m.

This is the purported diary of an immigrant German Jew living in New York during the war who recalls treating Hitler himself. Some of it rings true, other parts not. I do not know what to make of it regarding its authenticity. The book made a fascinating and sometimes disturbing read about the mysterious personality of this very evil person.

I am not sure what I expected when I started to read this book but this book was certianly not what I expected."American Rhapsody" by Joe Eszterhas uses the Clinton Lewinsky affair as a kind of metaphore for all that is/was wrong (or right if your are Joe Eszterhas) with the Sixties and the Hollywood counter culture, illicit sex, drugs, more drugs, radical polotics, and more illicit sex. I gave this book a second star because it did at times succede in two of it's major goals: 1) It did on occasion make me laugh and 2) It Almost (On occasion) made me, a charter member of the vast right wing conspiracy, feel sorry for Clinton. Make no mistake however, this is NOT a nice book by any means, in fact it is one of the meanist and most vicious books I have ever read. Joe Eszterhas Clearly is a egotistical self centered low life, who has only disdain for anyone who profess' any moral value. Eszterhas spends an entire chapter detailing how he "CREATED" Sharon Stone, ( he wrote "basic instinct"). Then got her to have an affair with his (ex?)friend to breakup his marriage so he could marry his friend's newly ex-wife. He spends another entire chapter blasting Arianna Huffington and her Ex-husband for no apperant reason except that she dared to call for the resignation of Bill Clinton. In a chapter tittled "The Ratwoman and the Bag Lady of Sleeze" (Linda Tripp and Lucciane Goldberg) he wites "To those in Washington who learned of the tight connection between Linda Tripp and Lucciane Goldberg, it made perfect sense, the two of them part of the same sleazy photo: the ratwoman gnawing on her bone in her bunting filled gutter and feeding next to her, the noxious bag lady of sleaze, cigerettes drooping from both their bloodred lips." And liberals say Repulican's are mean spirited? My recommendation for this book, wait for the paperback version, you will save some money and with the exta time to fumigate the stench of the Lewinsky scandal the book might seem a little funnier.

In the age of hypocrisy, defamation of character, finger-pointing, lying, manipulating, dirty tricks, and political warfare known as The Clinton Era, here is a book that tells it all. But guess what, no one can call Joe Eszterhas a member of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. He's as far to the left as they come, and this book details exactly why those from the left should despise Bill Clinton and everything he stood for. There's a good reason why Richard Nixon's shadow pops up throughout this narrative. Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon are so similar that it's scary. This book looks at the hope the Flower Children had in Bill Clinton when he was elected President, and then goes on to explain why he was the antithesis of what people like Eszterhas had hoped for in him. Bill Clinton's Presidency, Eszterhas argues, wasn't about any great cause other than Bill Clinton. But Eszterhas doesn't just go after Bill Clinton. Hillary, Al, W., Dole, and others all get the same treatment here. Eszterhas hates hypocrisy and here he goes after it. Unfortunately for America, there is a lot to go after.

Sure it's sleazy and overemphasizes the gory details (and that's putting it mildly!). But Eszterhas can write in a way that is not immediately apparent from having seen Showgirls et al. This books is SATIRE and like it or not captures a spirit of a generation that puts the whole Lewinsky fiasco in the proper perspective. This book reminds me of Wolfe's "Radical Chic", Thompson's "...Hell's Angels" or even Roth's "Our Gang".

I actually felt sorry for Clinton after having read this book. He's a creature of his own appetites and is unfortunately all too representative of his own cross-section of society. Eszterhas makes the observation that Clinton's true peer group is the rock-n-roll, far left set that ended up invading hollywood, music and almost every other segment of society---why not the white house, too?

You gotta love the "Rat Woman" caricature. It sums up many people's feelings so well. My personal favorite was his not-so-subtle characterization of Nixon as "The Night Creature". I liked his Nixon much better than Oliver Stone's.

I might be smoking something (without inhaling, of course), but I think that this book shows real talent and a deft hand at skewering that has been absent from the literary scene for a couple of decades.

I enjoyed it very much, even though I was prepared to sneer. It did however, need some serious editing and would have been a much, much better book if about 25% of it had been cut.

Did you know that the human brain has been analyzed as having three compartments? According to this analysis, the innermost brain, inherited from our reptilian ancestors, houses the most basic instincts. The next layer, inherited from our earliest mammalian ancestors, is called the limbic system. This section houses the emotions. The outermost layer, developed still later, is called the neocortex. This section houses our higher thinking skills.

If you didn't know that before, do you understand it now? If so, then you have just read pages 38 and 39 of "Battling the Inner Dummy." So you know all the author has to say about the triune brain.

Throughout the rest of the book, the author talks about everything under the sun. One chapter is an introductory course on Abnormal Psychology. Another chapter introduces us to the Theory of Relativity. In three more chapters, we get an overview of psychotherapy techniques. For reasons known only to himself, the author devises 10-point scales for various personality traits. There is also an extended scenario in which Freud comes back as a consultant for an advertising campaign. You might find it entertaining, you might think it's kyootsee-kyoot.

Here are some important questions which Weiner gives only a cursory glance:

Why are male heterosexuality and female heterosexuality so different? Men patronize prostitutes and porno magazines, whereas women patronize drugstore novels. A look at our primeval past can answer this question.

Why are people attracted to illegal drugs? Why are people attracted to foods which overdose on sugar, salt, and fat? Probably because such stimuli did not make their appearance soon enough in the history of the human brain.

The remaining questions Weiner does not discuss at all:

Why is there so much misunderstanding between women and men? Women exhort men to be honest about their feelings, but to no avail. Men refuse to ask for directions when they are lost, much to women's distress. These questions, too, can be answered in terms of the triune brain.

Why does a schoolteacher see the classroom as a battleground and see the students as enemies? Probably because the schoolteacher is clicking on the wrong section of the brain.

Why is one person so often proud of another person's accomplishment? When a citizen from your hometown wins a big competition, the whole town celebrates. Why should anyone else be proud when it was only that one person's accomplishment?
Likely because the citizens unconsciously think they are at war with everybody else.

Why are we so undiplomatic in expressing our opinions to a person who disagrees with us? After all, we want to influence the other person. Insulting and threatening that person will certainly not do the trick! Here again, our battle instincts come to the surface.

Why does prejudice rear its ugly head so often? Most likely because foreign language textbooks are a recent invention. If someone who looked and acted differently from you came up to you and said "Buenos dias," you wouldn't know WHAT that meant! The safest assumption is that it means "I'm going to eat you alive!"

What poses, gestures, and physical features make children cute, make women sexy, and make men manly? Lorenz (0674846303 and 0452011752), Tinbergen (1558210490), and Eibl-Eibesfeldt (0670167096 and 0416074804) have interesting answers to these questions, but Weiner apparently hasn't read about them.

If Weiner is so interested in psychological abnormalities, he could consider the effects of living in nuclear families while our inner brains are programmed for living in extended families. Many of our psychological problems--such as pedophilia--involve treating a person of one age or gender as we could more appropriately treat a person of another age or gender. It is reasonable to suggest that an upbringing in the presence of people of all ages and both genders could preclude such problems.

Why do liberals and conservatives fight an ongoing battle in many countries? Some animals are interdependent because they hunt in packs. Some animals are independent because they hunt alone. Some animals are half and half because they hunt both ways. That's why all dogs are Democrats, all cats are Republicans, and humans are half and half.

There is much to be said about evolutionary psychology. So why does Weiner say so little?

Weiner's theory that much of our so-called 'irrational' behavior has its roots in the limbic system is interesting. However, the weakness of his theory, as well as this book, is his insistence on applying it willy-nilly to every example of irrationality he comes across, while failing to acknowledge the countless examples of people who don't display irrational behavior. One of the 'proofs' he gives is several examples of his valiant efforts to drone on about his theory at parties or on airplanes, only to find that people either leave or stare at him and then change the subject. Weiner interprets this as proof that people can't comprehend the mind-boggling implications of what he's saying. A more likely explanation is this: staring and changing the subject is one of the only ways to deal with someone who's trying his darndest to hijack the conversation. Frankly, this entire book read like a conversation with someone who only has one idea and who can't let go of it or see that there are serious flaws with his theory. I also agree with the other reviewers who suggest skipping the Freud segments. Everything else aside, they're tedious, poorly written and illustrate nothing that wasn't repeated several times in the text proper.

If you want to know why our minds sometimes drive us to do stupid, irrational things, then this is the book to read. It gets beneath the surface of our brain/minds to examine the actual programs of our subconscious minds, which Weiner has pieced together from a myriad of references. He describes how it is largely impervious to direct rational reasoning (we can't just tell ourselves that it is foolish to be phobic about airplanes and rid ourselves of the phobia), and is why he has selected the metaphor Inner Dummy to describe this instinctive/emotional system. The book also describes in an almost playful, yet erudite way, every therapeutic strategy we might use ourselves or recommend to others in changing the nature of unwanted quirks, phobias, compulsions or other disorders that can lead us to irrational thought and action. This book definitely deserves five stars.

This book was poorly written. The grammatical concepts were hard to understand. The book continues to follow the story of the Cornelii family, with the annoying pest, Sextus, and the stuck-up Aurelia. I do not recommend this book to anyone.

I was instructed in Latin under both the Cambridge and Oxford texts, but Ecce Romani is much better. The grammar lessons are taught in a sensible order (despite what other querulous book reviewers may say), the daily life is well-rounded and detailed, and unlike most books, the student is shown how to really read the Latin (accent marks as well as macrons are supplied). This way, the student becomes more accustomed to properly stressing certain syllables and will fare much better in scansion and poetry later. The illustrations are not bad either! Finally, although some may find characers irritable, they are no worse than any other Latin textbook on the market. I highly recommend this series.

i hate this book! if i owned it, i would burn it! the only reason i have it is because i have to use it at school! its so bad, i have to get extra tutoring out of school! even my tutor says its bad! i dont think we should be taught latin through force, cos it is a dead usless range of nonsense! even my teachers admitted they hate latin, one quoted "its a job, isn't it?" if you want to learn latin, do no buy this book! it is a waste of money! oh yeah, and uit asking me how old i am! im 13 so lay off my case!

I wanted to learn latin and I had no idea what i was doing when I purchased another set of books to learn latin.I was on Amazon and I saw these books, so I decided to try them out. I literally taught myself how to speak and read latin. These books give you a reference a story in latin and a picture on almost every page. Instead of throwing words and prefixes you learn by associating the words with things in the scenes. You realize that some words are similar to english and other romantic languages. After about a year I had the basics down. I could now read sentences of latin clearly. Something that would have taken me at least two years to do without these books.

This book tells the interesting story of a family living in ancient Rome one year after the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. The vocabulary is not too complicated to learn and the grammer starts very easy and gradually works its way into the hard stuff. I have used books one and two. Next year I will be working with book three. So far I have enjoyed the stories and learning the Latin language with this book series.

This book is the second section of a two part book in the Ecce Romani series. This book text is more motivated to the reading and comprehension level of a youger reader. Each chapter starts with a story yet some chapters the stories have the same content. This book teaches you limited vocabulary and grammar a much needed part of learning latin. Towards the end of the book however the stories get more interesting with better sentence structure. It does however have many good points on Roman history, especially mythology. I liked the facts on Roman life though. This is a good book for a young Latin Scholar.

This book is the second section of a two part book in the Ecce Romani series. This book text is more motivated to the reading and comprehension level of a youger reader. Each chapter starts with a story yet some chapters the stories have the same content. This book teaches you limited vocabulary and grammar a much needed part of learning latin. Towards the end of the book however the stories get more interesting with better sentence structure. It does however have many good points on Roman history, especially mythology. I liked the facts on Roman life though. This is a good book for a young Latin Scholar.

If you're not already familiar with this era of English history, Burnet's book will be hard to follow. Important characters (so familiar to those times) enter our stage without introduction, and after dropping famous hints, or carrying off some great exploit, are discarded without subsequent investigation. In short, Burnet touches lightly on the events and main players of each year from 1660-1712, but scarcely troubles himself to round out his topics, or give life to his characters. As he himself says, he only writes on areas where he was a key witness, but doesn't enlarge on events which most likely would appear in other history books.

After reading Hume or Macaulay, Burnet's writings seem almost useless. An important figure of the times, it is difficult to conceive how this volume figures as an important journal of the times, yet for its defense, we are told that Swift owned a copy.

On a whole, the Cambridge Latin Course is a much better way to learn Latin. The four books are much better layed out and the stories are less depressing. (except when mons Vesuvius goes off!)

I have been using the book and I have a problem. My teacher wont help me and it is to hard so I am trying to find the translations in english. I need help.

This is the first text book I used when I learned latin back in fifth grade (many a year ago!), and I still value the approach it took in awakening my interest and understanding of not just the language, but the culture, the history, the politics, the context of the Roman people and their language. The text is filled with short 'stories' written in latin that encourage students to interact with the language in a living context, rather than treating the language as a dead, unusable language, as most latin texts do. This text engaged my imagination, fascinated me, and inspired me as an an adult to visit Italy to see the ruins, the town of Pompeii, and other sites that I first learned about through its pages. I thank this text for allowing me to translate latin I encountered in European Cathedrals I visited, as well.

There are few texts from my grammar school years that I can recall, let alone praise (hint, I'm nearing 30...), but Ecce Romani is one that still cherish for the impact it had on me as a student, and the lasting effects I've been able to trace in my life.