The format is a mass-market paperback, but this isn't a novelization but rather the screenplay as the movie was made. You'll notice that last has a subtle distinction. Oftentimes screenplays differ notably from the movies as you see them--scenes are cut because they didn't work, cost too much to do, or just because of the limits of time. The screenplays of Brazil and Monty Python and the Holy Grail are full of wonderful little tidbits that didn't make it to the screen. Unfortunately, for Life of Brian, there's only the parts that did get made, which are funny indeed, but you've already seen them.

The Oxford text-book of Psychiatry is certainly the best starting point for an intelligent perspective of psychiatry for beginners in training schemes.I hold no reservations in recommending this book essentially to medical graduates within the united kingdom. In adhering to a simple yet absorbing style,the text book covers all aspects of psychiatry.It's versatality stems from the fact that it takes the reader through a gradual increment of exposure starting from the very basics and progressing on, to end in a very complete list of references for all facts stated. The chapters on Psychopharmacology,Psychiatric history / examination and Psychopathology are complete in requirements for British graduates.The best written chapter is an extremely debatable array, though the chapter on Personality Disorders supersedes the rest. In essence a good guide and value for money.

This book is a great way to avoid your child feeling as though they have fallen behind or forgotten everything at the beginning of a new school year. My son has attention deficit disorder, and needed something over the summer to keep his skills and knowledge fresh. Other workbooks we have tried over summer breaks have been too overwhelming for him, but this seems to be a perfect fit. He is actually excited about working on this book over this summer. The only negative thing I would say is in comparison to "Summer Bridge" books for younger children, which to me are organized a little more logically. In those books, the child works through each page sequentially (Day 1 has a couple pages on each of the topics of math, spelling, etc.), while this book has you skip around a little more between each subject area. I really feel my son will be better equipped when the new school year starts, and not have so much catching up to do.

I finished reading this book right in the midst of the Trent Lott racial scandal, which resulted in the senator being forced to resign his position as Speaker of the House. Meg Greenfield's words and arguments echo prophetically when one looks into the real events. Her narration is lucid, intricate, and sophisticated. She paints a picture of Washington that is less than ideal and utopian, but her writing is so elevated and rich that it is easy to be mezmerized and captivated by this place nonetheless. She mixes in an array of different and fascinating characters in her stories: ranging from the proteges, to the prodigies, to the politicians' wives, and their children. Each and every one of these people has a distinct role to play in her narrative.

I took into consideration before reading this memoir that Greenfield might describe Washington chiefly from a woman's perspective. Although she has a chapter devoted to women in her book, she mainly wrote from a journalist's perspective. She did not express any strong feminist standpoints, but rather one who feels strongly about these issues would feel a slight disgust/surprise about her reluctance to do so. Nevertheless, to most people who are enchanted by Washington D.C., her book is still engrossing and authentic in its own right.

Much of the reason why I gave this 4 stars instead of a perfect 5 was because she flatly refused to mention more names in her memoir. A large majority of the people whom she speaks of remain nameless and anonymous. Thus, it keeps the reader guessing vaguely and wondering who did what to whom. In addition to this book, I also recommend "Hardball" by Chris Matthews.

Meg Greenfield was the consummate insider for 30 years in rough and tumble Washington D.C. She was the powerful editor of the editorial page on the Washington Post and had a weekly column in Newsweek. She counted among her friends Post publisher Kathryn Graham, many powerful politicians and fellow journalists. Her political inclinations are hard to pin down because of her diverse opinions, her friends from all sides of the political spectrum and her even-handed reporting.

This is not a 'tell-all' book. If you are looking for scandal and in-the-know tidbits on the famous players, you will be disappointed. She writes what it is to be in the middle of the whirlwind of national politics. The first danger is losing yourself, not your ideals. The role politicians must play to survive (and get re-elected) is for public consumption, and all too often the human being behind the spin ceases to exist. She likens D.C. to high school with twice the stress and all of the infighting necessary to be one of the Golden Boys. In D.C., there is no relaxing and reaping of rewards when you reach the exalted Senior status. You must constantly build your warehouse of favors owed to you while not alienating the voters or your peers.

Miss Greenfield has not written a memoir. I think that would have been impossible for her, as she was a completely private person. She maintains she had to be or she would have "lost" herself. Her writing style is economical and clear. She comes across as humorous, amazingly approachable with a very clear and unblinking eye on what has gone on around her. She has an ease with writing that only the best journalists can carry off. The book raises questions and answers others.

Unfortunately, Miss Greenfield died before completing the last chapter. I believe it was her wish that it not be published in her lifetime. When I completed the book, I felt as if we were such good friends that she wouldn't mind at all having lunch somewhere and clearing up any questions I might have. Perhaps she knew there would be many just like me.

An interesting book, not least because Meg Greenfield's WASHINGTON teasingly promises more than it delivers, only hinting at the devastating expose that might have been. One wonders what information may have been in the many secretly coded files that Michael Beschloss edited into the finished manuscript. Did Greenfield name some names that Beschloss deleted? Did she tell some tales that he thought were better left untold? Unfortunately, Beschloss's essay doesn't give a clue. And neither does Katherine Graham's tribute.

What does come across clearly from the published work is that Greenfield knew many more secrets than she ever told, that she kept these secrets while working for Max Ascoli at The Reporter and Katherine Graham at the Washington Post, and that she may have taken some of her best stories with her to her grave.

One conclusion that occurs after reading WASHINGTON is that reporters and editors have a lot more information than they ever share with their readers -- and that the game of "I know something you don't know" is one of the favorite pastimes in our nation's capital.

To see that confession in print, Greenfield's book is well worth reading.

Michael Graham - a radio talk-show host and former PR guy for the Republican Party - obviously wants to follow in the footsteps of HL Mencken, Dennis Miller, and Michael Moore as an acid-penned critic of "redneck" Southern culture. Like these gentlemen, Graham seems to believe that if you can't say something nasty about other people, then you shouldn't say anything at all. Graham grew up in a tiny rural village in South Carolina and, to put it politely, he hated it. This book is filled with every imaginable put-down of white, native-born Southerners. If you read this book you'll get the impression that Southern culture is responsible for everything from the Bubonic Plague to crabgrass in your lawn. And, most of Graham's comments contain nothing that most Southerners (and non-Southerners) haven't heard before - Southerners are still refighting the Civil War, they're racist and inbred, they don't like "book learnin" and despise intellectuals, etc. Graham's one unique twist on this tiresome refrain is that the South's backward, ignorant "redneck" ideas have swept the nation - he's as contemptuous of Northern yuppies and California academics as he is of his native region. According to Graham, the South has "won" the Civil War and Civil Rights battles by successfully exporting its racism, segregation, anti-intellectual beliefs, and "irrational" religious beliefs to the rest of the nation. For proof, he offers examples such as NASCAR (which, Graham announces with horror, is now the top spectator sport in the country), the "politically-correct", anti-free speech mindset at universities such as Cal-Berkeley and "Hahvud", and the growing "I am a victim" mentality among minorities nationwide, which he claims started with white Southerners after their defeat in the Civil War. Graham even sees the victory of "backward" Southern ideals in TV shows such as "Sex and the City", which he claims is basically just the story of Southern-style "trailer trash" women who happen to live in the Big Apple (and dress somewhat better). Some of Graham's schtick is admittedly funny, but there's nothing really new here (If you've seen or read Jeff Foxworthy's "You may be a redneck if..." books or comedy routines, you've seen most of Graham's stereotypes). Graham is also wrong in some of his historical claims - Northern racism wasn't "exported" from the South, but existed long before the Civil War. Bottom line: some of this book is funny, but Graham's endless pages of put-downs (of Southerners AND Northerners) gets repetitive really fast, and he adds very little that's new as the book goes along - it's basically one long, Dennis Miller-style rant on the same subject.

Let's suppose, for a minute, that your impression of America is of a place where the best rises to the top, where the backwards days of racism and good ol' boy networks are long gone, where stupidity is challenged and intelligence is rewarded.

If that's how you feel, I'm not saying you shouldn't read Graham's book... I'm just saying you should sit down with a nice, stiff drink before you do.

Graham's book is a rapid-fire presentation of tell-me-it's-not-true facts and rapier wise-guy commentary, asserting that while it's commonly accepted that the northern ideals of meritocracy, anti-racism and accountability won over the backwards southern society of the 1960's, in fact it was the south that won. According to Graham, today we live in a culture of whining, victimized, racist idiots - and he piles up the proof so high that by the end I predict you'll be crying either from laughter or depression, or perhaps a combination of both.

Graham has presented a tight, witty volume full of stuff you'll wish he was making up - but he's not. Oh, man. I need a drink.

This is quite possibly one of the best books I have ever read. Graham does a fine job of voicing his political points and keeping people interested, especially with his humor. Everybody, Yankee or Rebel, should read this book!

I wanted to like this book. I just finished the Dudley Warner Book, in the same classic gardening series, which I had savored like a good box of chocolates, rationing out a few pages, each day. But this one--oddly enough--depressed me slightly. It has a sad subplot. You have this stiff upper lip British Matron, who was married to Walter, who oppressed every good idea she had for their garden. She basically isn't able to implement her visions until he dies. But once he's dead you realize, in her humerous complaints, that she misses him. The rest is all gardening, without the breathtaking observations Charles Dudley Warner has, about plants, and without the richness of his language. Fish is an OK writer, but she's not great. I guess Charles Dudley Warner is an impossible act to follow. Warner has one chapter where General Ulysses Grant visits, then he realizes he must burn the chair he sat in. He's unbelievably funny. That book is full of life and a grand vision. Fish's book is somehow claustrophobic. Reading Warner's book, I feel like I'm in a most interesting place filled with surprises, in Fish's book I feel like I'm trapped in a garden, I'd rather exit. I've read about half of her book, and you'd have to pay me to finish it. I frown when I see it on the pile of books behind my comode.

WE MADE A GARDEN is a lovely little book by Margery Fish, an "elderly" English lady who with her husband (he who must be obeyed or cleverly deceived it seems) moved to a country manor and converted the mostly lawn areas into gardens of shrubs, flowers, and herbs. First published in the U.K. in the 1950s, the book has been republished as part of the 'Modern Library Garden Series' edited by Michael Pollan.

Fish's little book will be considered a gem by experienced gardeners who can picture the plants she names in the mind's eye, identify with her triumphs and failures, and appreciate a useful clues from an obviously seasoned hand. Garden veterans will also identify with the greedy gardener who never has enough space, the stubborn gardener who plants Nepeta despite it's runaway habits, the recalcitrant gardener who hides the verboten brilliant orange Lychnis chalcedonica at the back of the beds, and the disobedient gardener who leaves many openings in the cemented walkway hubby designed to thwart weeds.

The book may appear a bit dense to the new gardener as it describes activities such as composing flower beds, creating walkways, and engineering rock gardens with inferior rocks,with no illustrations, other than a few black and white photos-one of Mrs Fish on bended knee at work in her rock garden. However, all is not lost. Determined gardeners unfamiliar with the various plants Mrs Fish names can refer to a nursery catalogue since 60-70 percent of the plants available in the 1950s can be found contemporary mail order publications

This book is a very good overview of the kingdom Fungi. With an easy vocabulary usage, the authors were able to entertain the reader with very well done chapters. Although some of the topics could have been streesed a little deeper, the book is perfect for college students enrolled in classes such as introductory mycoloy and fungal systematics.

This course comes with a book and four cassettes. The book is great. It has a lot of historical, cultural, and touristical information about Spain, in Spanish geared for the student of the language. However, the tapes have so much instruction and commentary in English, that they lose almost all of their value as a tool for understanding what is heard. If this course is available without the tapes, my recommendation is that you go that route.

This is the first book in the Forensic Pathology: Causes of Death Atlas series.

My first thought when this arrived in the mail was geez it's awfully thin. The entire book is 112 pages. Having looked through the whole thing my opinion is that for $19.95 this would be a great book, unfortunately it's $35.00.

In the first chapter we have fourteen pages of text discussing time of death determination and decomposition. The text is not footnoted and there is no list of references or supplemental reading. The fourteen pages of text are followed by 71 pages of black-and-white photographs. The photographs would be far more useful if they were in color. One photograph in particular notes that one of the first signs of decomposition is green discoloration of the skin, especially in the abdomen. Unfortunately without a color plate none of these signs are visible in the photograph. The remaining photographs are of average quality but they do they do a good job of depicting various manner of death and decomposition subjects.

The second chapter on identification has seven pages of text and 24 pages of photographs. Chapter two includes nine references.

Chapter three consists of four pages containing three case studies.

The extensive collection of photographs used in the book cannot alone justify its cost. Were the photographs in color, or their production value of higher it might make a difference.

I would recommend the book for those of you that may be visual thinkers. However, for more in depth treatment I would recommend Spitz and Fisher's Medicolegal investigation of Death which covers a far greater variety of death related issues and is more than worth it's somewhat higher price.

One of my authors asked me recently about whether I wanted footnotes in a piece that he was writing. I told him that if he was making any claims that people might dispute, he should footnote the h... out of it. Michael Shelden doesn't do this. His biography is full of controversial claims but his critical apparatus is very weak. In fact, one of his claims, that a gardener at an uncle's home was a central figure in his life, doesn't seem to have any documented source at all.

If the claims were restricted to gardeners, this would not be an important detail, but Shelden makes an assortment of claims, identifying Greene as a homosexual, an antisemite, a closet fascist, and even insinuates that Greene was a murderer as well. Of all of these claims, only the antisemitism claim seems to have any merit and what merit there exists is for a weaker antisemitism than Shelden claims. The claim of homosexuality doesn't jibe with Shelden's own account of Greene's life.

Perhaps most amusing is that while Shelden is eager to point out Greene's fondness for deception, he doesn't seem to acknowledge the possibility that he himself was being deceived.

The negative reviews preceding mine certainly do not mince words in castigating Shelden's biography of Graham Greene. However, they offer nothing to refute Shelden's well documented research; they are simply expressions of displeasure (and possibly embarrassment--how do you reconcile your world-class super-sophisticated British novelist toting around a teddy-bear like Radar O'Reilly?) Although I have been fascinated by much of Greene's fiction, and will continue to read and re-read his best works, I think Shelden makes quite a good case that Greene was an extremely manipulative, bisexual, anti-Semitic, hypocrite who stood for nothing in his personal life. Indeed, Greene belongs with Rousseau, Hemingway, Brecht, et al., in Paul Johnson's famous book of misfits, Intellectuals. Greene's sham Catholicism is particularly galling, since he converted as a young man only as a means to win Vivien's hand, yet he used it for the rest of his life as a bogus defense against those who might question the sincerity and depth of his religious sentiments. As Shelden says, if one did not know that Greene was (allegedly) Catholic, it would be very difficult to read works like Brighton Rock or The Comedians as some kind of theological statement about grace and transcendence. Let's face it: Greene was only looking out for number one. There is nothing wrong with that, except if you are passing yourself off as a humanist.

I read the other reviews and I think people don't like a biography that doesn't polish a popular authors life. i found this biography to be very good. It piqued my interest in Graham Greene. I shall read another biography and compare the two. I will also read Graham Greene's Memoirs. No biography or autobiography should considered 100% fact because a biographer may interview someone with bad memory and miss certain cluw along his or her investigation. And autobiographers also tend to embellish things. So it's better to read more than one account of a persons life before making conclusions.