If you ever wondered what goes on in the mind of the screenwriter who gave us TAXI DRIVER and RAGING BULL (as well as directing such films as the remake of CAT PEOPLE and the literary biopic MISHIMA), then look no further than this absolutely wonderful collection of interviews with Paul Schrader. Covering everything from his thematic obsessions to his writing and directing methods (as well as including a selection of critical writings by Schrader from his pre-filmmaking days as a critic), Kevin Jackson has done a wonderful job with this book - my personal favorite in the great Faber & Faber series (which also includes CRONENBERG ON CRONENBERG and SCORSESE ON SCORSESE). Must reading!

... This is a great book-- the message is not feminist. ...[It's]about making your dreams come true versus waiting around for them to come true; about being sensible rather than trying to live a fairy tale. While Cinderella gets lucky, Cinder Edna makes her own luck. Cinderella cries at her misfortune and dreams of a prince to save her, but Cinder Edna makes lemonade out of her lemons, and also gets a prince.

The book is a little long for the younger set-- my four-year-old can barely sit through it unless I read it fast, hence the one objection I have about pronouncing "Cinder Edna".

I am a teacher, and I bought this book for my 3rd grade class when we were doing a unit on Cinderella. This is a fabulous take on the classic story, updated wonderfully. But some of the ideas had to be explained to my children because it was a lot to take in. They didn't get some of the jokes. In the end, I think that most of them got the general idea. The moral is a great lesson for kids these days.

This wonderful and funny version of the Cinderella story is about a girl with spunk, imagination and drive. She ends up happier than the girl who is pretty, but dependent and needy. It's a must-read for every young girl. I bought one for all my daughter, the school library and my friends' little girls.

A good book that describes in some detail the development of wild weasels, associated gears and tactics. Traces development through veitnam to more current times. Good coverage of topics related to WW history and development and some Airforce / Navy politics. Good for the casual readers with no engineering background to follow and understand. For engineers or researchers this will provide a good general background and introduction into this field.

I worked in the field of EW for 9 years, and so I am very biased about this book, but I am also a harsh critic on books about this topic. I found the book to be a great intro to what exactly electronic warfare is and how it is used on the battlefield. Stories abound, terms are explained, and the writing is in a friendly style. I did find it strange that the book is called "Iron Hand", the term the USN uses, and the front cover photo is of USAF F-16CJs. The USAF uses the term "Wild Weasel".

In these postmodern times, a book about footnotes, indexes, acknowledgments, and so forth - was bound to be written. We should be grateful that such a book was written by Kevin Jackson. This book is hilarious, and should find an audience amongst graduate students, and more generally, bibliophiles. Jackson's book is a study (the better word is 'celebration') of 'paratexts', those matters which are an essential part of any book - footnotes, epigraphs, stage directions, indexes, and so forth.

One can only hint at the humour in this book.

For instance, in his chapter on pseudonyms, he discusses the reasons why Eric Blair decided to adopt the pseudonym "George Orwell", noting rather snidely in a footnote: "A cynic might add that 'Blair' is an unlikely name for a socialist."

Or when discussing the merits of the last words of James Joyce in his famous short story, "The Dead," Jackson comments: "Lovely prose, Jimmy, simply lovely; not a dry eye in the parlour the last time I read it out to the servants."

Or his chapter on marginalia, which is about those awful scribblings on books made by readers. Jackson adds his own marginalia to his work - the underlining of the word 'penis', with the comment "smut!"; or the bracketing of a paragraph with "come, now....", "typical", "Has this man never heard of Derrida?" and my favourite, "bamba, BAMBA!" Just the right touch of pomposity.

His chapter on indexes is classic. He quotes from Joe Queenan's book, If You're Talking to Me, Your Career Must be in Trouble:

Tesh, John
Likened to Adolf Hitler, 78
Obliviousness of, 76
Questionable goatee of, 78

This is funny, but at the same time it makes you realise how important indexes really are - and how much fun they can be. I have Queenan's book, but never even bothered to look at the index.

Sometimes, however, Jackson's trickery falls flat, like his chapter "Follies", which is devoted to literary experimentation. The beginning of each paragraph in this piece corresponds to a letter of the alphabet. I was only vaguely curious to see how one could begin a sentence with X and Z. For me, the form under which this particular essay was written detracted from what Jackson was saying (Actually, I felt that way about the chapter on marginalia a bit. The marginalia was so prominent - like all good marginalia! - that it was hard to concentrate on the actual text). Neither was his discussion on literary experimentation particularly interesting, and George Perec's famous book, written without the letter "e", is given more thought by Jackson's colleague, Gilbert Adair.

Still, overall, great...

You have to love books and the history of how and why they are the way they are organizationally and physically to enjoy this book. Subtitled "A Guide to Literary Curiosities," Kevin Jackson brings us deep into the world of book parts and how they came to be.

From introductions to prefaces, from pseudonyms to heteronyms, the author embellishes the book with the history that makes them what they are and uses many examples to illustrate his ideas. He describes the origins and uses of blurbs, dedications, epigraphs, and footnotes (which borrows heavily from Anthony Grafton's The Footnote: A Curious History).

Jackson looks at marginalia and stage directions, lectures and last words as used in books. Finally, he addresses the back matter of books: appendixes, bibliographies, and indexes.

This is excellent reading for the historically inclined and for bibliophiles.

Every writer should read this book! I almost fell out of my chair from laughing so hard. I had tears streaming. Jackson breaks down all those "extra" parts of the book that you never consider until you are actually faced with creating a book. Then, suddenly, you realize there are many parts, other than the body. These include the foreword, afterword, title, index, footnotes, appendix, bibliography, and so forth.

From the very first page, starting with writing the notes about the author, Jackson is displaying wit. He ends the notes on himself with the following statements: "He divides his time inefficiently. All of the above is perfectly true, but has been massaged a bit to make him seem more interesting."

He ends the final chapter, on indexes, with this statement: "Kind reader, now proceed to the index- prepared, as is often the case, not by the bumbling writer but by another writer- and regard it with renewed affection and respect."

Jackson explains in the introduction that he is not an academic and does not have to concern himself with tenure. Therefore, he can do it like he wants to do it. Kudos for that.

As for the actual dispersal of information, this is a book of technique to be reckoned with! It's there. He not only explains how to compose the various components, he gives several examples. He cites his sources and uses excerpts and quotations to thoroughly explain the subject. His instruction is easy to comprehend and relate to.

My favorite portions of this book were the chapters; or "maggots," as the author labels them; on pseudonyms and heteronyms. I had no idea what a heteronym was. It turns out that "pseudonym" refers to a writer that is writing as himself but publishing his work under a different name. "Heteronym" refers to when a writer is writing "outside his personality;" creating an entirely different personality and reflecting that personality throughout his works.

If you have ever been stumped about penning your author's blurb, reach for this book. Jackson breaks these into two categories: boring conventional and interesting nonconventional. He encourages breaking out of the bragging mold and opting for a short, off-the-wall statement. He gives many examples and cites the pros and cons of each.

This book provides a wonderful look into the components of a book. It is instructive, informative, and downright hilarious. After reading this volume, you will never view the classics and their authors in the same light!

Reprinted from Gotta Write Network Online

First of all there is a review of this book by someone that, apparently, didn't read it. The book has no pictures, it is like the title imply ILUSTRATED. The ilustrations are good but I wouldn't say awesome. Some of them are available as posters in various stores. The stories are interesting and present the Labrador in other aspects of life and not only in the hunting field which I consider a very good thing. One thing is for sure, this is a Labs lovers book. Believe me, if you don't love the breed you probably won't enjoy the book as much. If you do love Labs, as much as I do, you'll enjoy the reading and ilustrations. But I wouldn't say this is an exceptional book. It is good.

When I bought this book I didnt know how good the pictures were. Now I know thier AWSOME! You'll never regret buying this WONDERFUL book!

First of all there is a review of this book by someone that, apparently, didn't read it. The book has no pictures, it is like the title imply ILUSTRATED. The ilustrations are good but I wouldn't say awesome. Some of them are available as posters in various stores. The stories are interesting and present the Labrador in other aspects of life and not only in the hunting field which I consider a very good thing. One thing is for sure, this is a Labs lovers book. Believe me, if you don't love the breed you probably won't enjoy the book as much. If you do love Labs, as much as I do, you'll enjoy the reading and ilustrations. But I wouldn't say this is an exceptional book. It is good.

When I bought this book I didnt know how good the pictures were. Now I know thier AWSOME! You'll never regret buying this WONDERFUL book!

I hope no one else has the same bad experience as me so this is just a warning. I spent around 20 hours trying to get the example in chapter 2 to work. I've installed apache/tomcat with IIS several times and it has never taken more than a couple of hours -point being figuring out struts shouldn't take very long. After struggling with this book I got another book "Apache Jakarta-Tomcat" and read their 10 page exerpt on struts. The 10 page explination in the Apache book helped me much more than the 63 pages in chapter 2. The explinations were much more clear and the struts frame work was very simple to understand. After reading the apache book I went back through the example found in chapter 2 and found SEVERAL errors in the source code! I wasted a lot of time because I had thought I installed struts incorrectly. It was frustrating to waste so much time just because the source code in chapter 2 was incorrect. If chapter 2 had explained struts more clearly I probably could have caught the errors in the source code. Chapter 2 explains about 500 ideas with no real concrete examples to show you what it's talking about. Then it speeds through an example (that doesn't work) and it doesn't really show you at all how everything is finally tied together.
To be fair, the book does have a disclaimer in the beging which states that it's for more advanced users. So if you aren't very very familiar with struts don't start with this book. Once you get past the struts nightmare the rest of the book is pretty good. I wouldn't say the explinations aren't very good but the ideas they present are very usefull.

I hope no one else has the same bad experience as me so this is just a warning. I spent around 20 hours trying to get the example in chapter 2 to work. I've installed apache/tomcat with IIS several times and it has never taken more than a couple of hours -point being figuring out struts shouldn't take very long. After struggling with this book I got another book "Apache Jakarta-Tomcat" and read their 10 page exerpt on struts. The 10 page explination in the Apache book helped me much more than the 63 pages in chapter 2. The explinations were much more clear and the struts frame work was very simple to understand. After reading the apache book I went back through the example found in chapter 2 and found SEVERAL errors in the source code! I wasted a lot of time because I had thought I installed struts incorrectly. It was frustrating to waste so much time just because the source code in chapter 2 was incorrect. If chapter 2 had explained struts more clearly I probably could have caught the errors in the source code. Chapter 2 explains about 500 ideas with no real concrete examples to show you what it's talking about. Then it speeds through an example (that doesn't work) and it doesn't really show you at all how everything is finally tied together.
To be fair, the book does have a disclaimer in the beging which states that it's for more advanced users. So if you aren't very very familiar with struts don't start with this book. Once you get past the struts nightmare the rest of the book is pretty good. I wouldn't say the explinations aren't very good but the ideas they present are very usefull.

It is definitely not a beginner book.

But all the chapters are good even though it was written by different authors.

The section on refactoring in the beginning set the tone of the book. Good authors. Would recommend this book to anyone working with jsps. Very easy language to understand too. The reason I gave it a 4 is 'coz I understood it more only after I began working with jsps for a while.

While this guidebook is still the only printed source for central Texas limestone, it is extremely outdated. Do not get me wrong, for those wishing to merely sample the limestone of central Texas, this well established guide will lead you in the right direction. However, with the innumerable number of sport routes and bouldering areas that have developed over the past five years, this guide is in need of a serious overhaul. As well, it is DEFINATELY not worth more than 15 bucks! Better to look at Blodyflapper.com or Texasclimbers.com for up to date information.

GREAT BOOK WITH DESCRIPTIVE DETAIL ON CLIMBS. IT'S REALLY A SIN TO PUBLISH ALL THIS BETA. TEXAS CLIMBING WITH AN ATTITUDE. I LIKE IT. AND YES, E-ROCK IS STILL CLOSED TO ALL CLIMBING... THANKS, RPM

For finding limestone routes around central texas, nothing compares, except I guess having someone take you there. The exposition is clever & irreverant. The directions to the crags are clear and the topos are pretty good for picking out which route is which (though not the best I've seen).

The biggest drawback is that the current addition is going on 5 years since the last edition. Many new routes have been added & changes have been made to the protection on many routes. Hopefull the authors will create a new edition soon. Until then, there is nothing better (at least that I've seen..)

This title is an overview of Dr. Leman's other books. The ideas of reality discipline, healthy parental authority, using encouragement vs. praise with kids, and considering your child's birth order are insightful, but "Becoming the Parent...." leaves one yearning for more information. It felt incomplete, almost like an advertisement for his other books. His "Birth Order Book", and "Making Children Mind Without Losing Yours" were much better reading as they give a deeper picture of the concepts he's driving at. I say leave this small- group study guide to the small- groups and get Leman's more complete and better written books for your personal reading.