For the person who have no idea what colleges they go to, and what to look for in colleges. The book guides you through with a self-assessment survey in the beginning that allows you to prioritize between preferences you may have for colleges.

The most useful part of the book, however, is the catagorized colleges. Unlike other books that list colleges by state or alphabetic order, this book lists the "brain" colleges, the liberal arts colleges, the "specialized" colleges. This allows me to find colleges that are similar to the ones they are interested in.

Also gives significant insights into the colleges with long and informative commentaries on each of the profiled colleges.

Also includes a section on the admissions process itself.

The only shortcoming is the fact that not too many colleges are included, but the ones that are are amazingly done.

I spent an entire junior year trying to choose colleges. This book did the job in a few hours.

Brief book without the usual long ancedotal and long explanations. It's right on the mark, made sense and is easy to comprehend, without any legal experience. But if a lawyer is required, I'd contact Mr. Benjamin, a no-nonsense, straight-forward "tell it like it is" person.

I was told of this book in a meeting at of the company I work for.
We Provide Care to MR/DD people. This book is very disturbing and also enlighting. It makes me feel good to know that we, as a society have for the most part worked to change what these poor souls went through. A must read.

I was introduced to Christmas in Purgatory in 1996, when I took a course at Western Washington University called Introduction to Execeptional Children. There was no introduction to the essay, it was simply named in an assignment. Needless to say, I was horrified. I'm placing an order for it today as I feel that students taking courses related to people with disabilities need to see this. The book cannot be found on the national library system (in Norway), and therefore I've decided to buy a copy and donate it to my local university.

Those who would dismiss this book as overgeneralized and flawed forget that institutions were originally established not to protect disabled people from society, but society from disabled people.

Popular notion of the time held disabled people would be much more of a hindrance than help to society, and looked odd. Thus, if they were locked up, society would know where they were at all times while being able to pretend that they did not exist to begin with. Indeed, when Blatt and Kaplan's expose appeared, it set off controversy from those who had the audacity to defend the charges against very quickly turning public sentiment.

Although they are certainly free to articulate what they consider flaws with the book, it is difficult to believe that critics of this work would actually want to downplay the seriousness of these (and other) investigations if they were in those instutitions. Indeed, I strongly suspect they would want to be treated like human beings and given adequate care and a stimmulating environment.

As a diabled person myself, the contents of the book hit very close to home. Fortunate enough to be born in 1979, I realized that had I been born 20 years earlier, I most likely would have been one of the unfortunate people in the institutions investigated in this essay. While I previously had been aware of the disability rights movement's work in this area, reading this book gave me a whole new perspective on my work as a disability rights activist.

Because this book was never positioned as an indictment of all facilities, I am suprised by the rather hostile nitpicking and the blanket statement allegations. I believe this says more about the individuals reviewers than the quality of the authors themselves, and should not be weighted when looking at this book.The institutions in this essay were picked because the actual practices stood in sharp contrast to the "help and loving environment" they promised parents and relatives that patients would get. Woe is the person who even suggests that this was not as bad as people have made it out to be.

If it is difficult to believe the conditions doccumented in this book, it is because of the continued ease with which society is encouraged to view disabled people as helpless children, rather than potential Supreme Court nominees, doctors, lawyers etc...Ironically, baby and bath allegories demonstrate the urgency with which this book should be designated as required reading for anybody considering a degree in social sciences or a job in a related field.

This fascinating review of nuclear strategy covers the period from 1945 to 1990. It is extraordinarily clear in presenting the options faced by Presidents and decision makers, and how they resulted in strategy that varied between "Nuke them back to the Stone Age" in 1948 to "MX Racetracks in the Nevada Desert" in the Caarter and Reagan Administration.

I found it a most compelling read, causing me to sacrifice sleep to continue, because it names names, dates, and places. Insight into all the news figures I grew up seeing on TV News.

I grew up as an Army Brat in the 1960's and 1970's, and this book explains why many of the weapons systems came and went. In-fact, it explains why our family "Came and Went" on a few stations!

I highly recommend this if you have even a passing interest in Nuclear War strategy and National Policy, or even in what part you and/or your parents/grandparents played in the "Big Picture".

This book was one of the greatest I have had the pleasure to read. I was so fascinated reading this that I stayed up reading the book for three days straight. I then had to read it again, this time going four days without sleep, mainly because I'm an idiot. I gave up work and school studying the tactics used in the groups mentioned. I was very intigued, and have started reading it again. ...

I s Gore Vidal a great writer? It depends on what he is writing. This compilation is long overdue as Vidal has never been taken as seriously by the Eastern literary establishment as he deserves. Certainly, he is one of the very few serious writers who also know how to entertain. This is what makes him so successful. Included here is his play, "The Best Man," the complete "Myra Breckenridge," selections from his historical novels, and a number of essays. My own opinion is that few writers are capable of such elegant prose as Vidal is when he is writing in the essay form. He understands politics better than any other fictional writer, which is why his historical novels make such splendid reading. His wit is uneven; brilliantly hilarious and insightful at its best, unnecessarily vulgar and savagely mean at its worst, which is why his comic novels are such hit and miss affairs. Vidal's work, taken as a whole, is an impressive library. Few good writers have been as productive as he, and who else can claim to have been consistently on the bestseller lists for nearly four decades as he has? Anyone who admires Vidal will argue with some of the selections here but there is also much to entertain and enlighten. Enjoy.

As a long-time fan of Gore Vidal (both the man and his work) I was disappointed with Kaplan's treatment. He is overly fawning of Vidal and looks at all events soley through his subject's eyes. The result is a fawing biography with little, if any, critical analysis or realism about Vidal. Kaplan also has a propensity for constantly droning on about Gore's good looks. Every few pages we are reminded that Vidal was "handsome," striking" or given details about his mesmerizing pulchritude. Enough, already.

There was ample gossip and name dropping, so if you're into dirt on the Kennedy's, Capote or Gore himself, you won't be disappointed. But if you're seeking a serious or even semi-critical examination of Gore, flaws and all, you won't find it here.

It's a shame, because few men of any generation have had the brains, wit and talent of Gore Vidal, but he has proven elusive to the picklocks of biographers.

A biographer's task begins with difficulty. Add more difficulty when his subject is still alive, and square that when the subject is as lively, controlling and litigious as Gore Vidal. When I learned that this project was about to be undertaken, I simply rolled my eyes and whipered "Good Luck, Mr. Kaplan."

Needless to say, I was not surprised when I read the results, for they were exactly what I expected. However, my expectation was tempered by my joy at discovering heretofore unknown facts about the life of the subject.

Given the handicap of working with Vidal, Kaplan produces a surprisingly strong biography. When judging it we must keep two things in mind: (1) Before this book, little was known of Vidal's life other than what appeared in the society pages and gossip sheets. For someone who has lived the last forty years of his life squarely in the public eye, Vidal has remained virtually unkown to that public. (2) Vidal is still very much with us and he is an extremely controlling person. Kaplan had a hell of a battle in refusing Vidal's request to see the manuscript before publication. As it was, the omissions from the book are minor and the book itself is surprisingly factual in spite of the hurdles Kaplan had to face. (For instance, Vidal didn't become political until the late Fifties, a fact which Kaplan deftly works in at the right moment.)

Now that the tome is in paperback, one can safely buy it without the feeling of having wasted one's money. For those purists out there who feel the book was not worth the time, remember this: The book is well-written and contains many items and facts about the life of Gore Vidal that were not public knowledge. And that he wrote such a tome under the controlling gaze of Vidal was a triumph in itself. For those who want an unexpurgated life of Vidal, sorry . . . you'll just have to wait until after his death.

Kaplan has written a wonderfully involving biography of my favorite author. His portrait is well balanced and doesn't skirt any issues concerning this talented, complex and sometimes infuriating man. I have had my reservations about Vidal as a person and Kaplan gives enough background to understand, though not fully absolve, Gore Vidal. I enjoyed every page of it. Especially priceless is the shrewd, winking, nudging account of the famous William F. Buckley/Gore Vidal feuds in which Buckley comes across as quite bad. It becomes pretty obvious to any intelligent reader of 1999 why Buckley behaved so erratically and could barely stand to be in the same room with Gore Vidal. The whole book is a great read. One finishes it with a sense of both admiration and pity for Vidal who suffered (at the hands of his shrewish mother, from the loss of an early love, from early devastating literary disappointments, from being gay when it was verboten) more than he ever let on. Vidal isn't what one would call a nice, warm human being, but he did his best to make something of himself with the considerable talent he had.

Hard Times feels like a book that Dickens did not polish nearly as much as the many classics associated with his name. It's the story of the unhappy lives of two children of a father who raised them to speak and appreciate only "facts." Imagination, fantasy, passion, and the like were all forbidden in their household.

Their lives are unhappy, as you'd expect. But they also lack much narrative interest. The usual twists and turns of fate that Dickens invests into his characters' lives are mostly absent. As a result the book drags on. Hard Times also lacks the humor found in other Dickens books, his pithy observations of different persona of his time. So, in reading the uninspiring narrative, you find yourself wishing for something, anything of the old Dickensian magic. Alas, it does not show up.

If you have other Dickens titles you're set on reading, read them first. You're likely to enjoy them more.

If you read Hard Times for the sole purpose of being entertained you will probably be highly disappointed. However, if you understand what was happening during this time period, you will realize that Hard Times is in reality, a long commentary. The Industrial Revolution was starting to show its down side. There was rampant poverty and disease, from the overcrowding of the cities. Children of the poor had to work long hours in unsafe factories rather than go to school. The gulf between the haves and the have-nots was very wide. The middle class was only beginning to be a distinct group.
This then was the backdrop of Hard Times. Dickens is making a social and political statement. This is a statement against the mechanizing of society. It starts with Dickens repeated use of the word fact. It is facts that have meaning. Human conventions like feeling, compassion or passion have no meaning or looked down upon as an inconvienent waste of time. If a situation cannot be put down on paper as in an accounting ledger it should not be considered.
This is where the conflict of the book comes in. Which helps humanity more compassion or fact. Is Bounderby a better person than Blackpool? Bounderby, who by his own admission was a self-made man. Untrue as this was he said it enough to make it his own reality. Or Blackpool, a weaver with an alcoholic wife, who was in love with another woman. Facts made Bounderby rich, compassion made Blackpool human.
Louisa presents another conflict. Louisa was educated only by fact. No wonder or inquisitiveness was ever allowed. She was the perfect robot. Doing what she was told when she was told. Just another piece of the machine, however, the piece broke, emotions came out, and they broke down the wall of fact that Mr. Gradgrind had so carefully constructed. Because the feelings have finally been acknowledged things really break down. She finds that not only has she married the wrong man but also the man she did marry is a buffoon whom she cannot respect nor live with.
The reader is left wondering if there is no one who will not be ruined by all the worship to fact. The whelp has certainly been ruined to the point he feels no responsibility to anyone but himself. If a situation can not be used to his advantage then he has no use for it, as a matter of course, he will run when he believes he will have to take responsibility for his own actions.
The gypsies have not been ruined by fact. But only because they live outside of society, they do not conform to the rules of society. These are the people who value character over social status. The gypsies do not value Bounderby and Bitzer with all their pomp and egomania. Rather they value Stephen Blackpool and Cecilia whom can show compassion and kindness no matter a person's station in life.
Hard Times can be used to look at today's society. Are we, as a society more worried about our computers, cell phones, faxes, and other gadgets than our neighbor's well being? Do we only get involved to help others when there is a personal benefit? Or, are we like the gypsies who can look into the character of the person and not worry about the socio-economic status? While Dickens' wrote Hard Times about 19th century England the moral can easily fit into 21st century America

I always had a revulsion when I was forced to read Dickens in high school, and I was never able to get past the first chapter of any of his books, including this one. Now that I'm in my mid-30's, I want to re-visit a lot of the works that I had no patience for as a teenager, so I read Hard Times. Although there are many flaws to this book, I felt proud to have finally cleared the Dickens hurdle. Dickens is excellent at creating sympathetic (and evil) characters, even though they may be slightly cliche or wooden. The fact is, Dickens is able to hook you in with his plots and create a profound concern on behalf of the reader that the good guy (or girl) wins and the bad guy suffers. A lot of the twists in this book were a little "too convenient" and implausible to make it a crowining work of literature, but nevertheless it has motivated me to move on to Dickens' larger, more daunting works. If you are having any trepidation about tackling Dickens, Hard Times is a good place to start.

This book seems to have been written by a business man and not a man of literature. I felt as though I were reading Charles Dicken's family budget diary rather than a life-history. This biography is lengthy with details that are indescribably boring. I found myself longing for more of the emotional aspects of this marvelous man's life. Kaplan writes in a dry, uninspiring style. I had 'great expectations' for this book but found those expectations dashed to pieces on the rock of boredom.

Kaplan is an excellent researcher. His book is also boring as all heck, too. Dickens, in my opinion, is usually quite funny, or poignant, or both. Don't bother, unless you're doing a paper on Dicken's kidney problems or his friends, and who cares?

Charles Dickens is without a doubt one of my favorite authors. I have read all of his major novels (some numerous times) and many of his other works. The most important things to know about Dickens are right there in his own words. However, the man himself is a fascinating subject from his rise through a poor youth to his triumph as the most famous authors of his age or, indeed, any age. Certainly, Dickens is worthy of a well-written biography. Fortunately, there are well-done ones out there.

I had read Kaplan's book a number of years ago and recently read it again. It remains one of the best. Kaplan gives us a complete and balanced portrait of Dickens' entire life. He is sufficiently laudatory of Dickens' successes without being fawning. Additionally, he is not afraid to point out Dickens' weaknesses--as a son, husband, father, friend and author, though his weaknesses as a author are few enough. We get a real sense of Dickens as a human being.

One of the reasons I think Kaplan is so successful in his portrait is that he weaves numerous quotes from letters by Dickens and his many correspondents almost seamlessly into the text. It gives more of a feeling for Dickens as a man of his time as opposed to looking back and trying to compose a modern view of him. I also like the way Kaplan shows Dickens as an acute observer who integrated people and places he knew into his fiction. There are risks in reading a novel too biographically but it is interesting to try to pin down an author's inspirations and themes. Kaplan handles this quite well but he doesn't go into any of the novels in depth so someone unfamiliar with Dickens' books might have trouble in some places.

Overall, Kaplan finds an nice balance between depth and readability. He is able to pack a lot into 556 pages. Anyone with an interest in Dickens would be foolish not to read one of the best biographies of the man in print.