Make no mistake - Kennedy loves the City of Albany and it shows throughout this book. I enjoyed this book, probably more than others might, because I went to college in Albany in the early 1980's when the book was published. Strangely I never read it back then and haven't been back to Albany in 14 years. Good for me but maybe bad for others the book stops in 1982 so it matches with my memory. But I love history combined with folklore and the stuff that makes a city or region unique. When most of America is becoming Americ-urbia all an area has left is its history. Albany is rich. It's a great read.

This reprinting of a book first printed over a hundred years ago is an enjoyable, if somewhat depressing review of the managment and mismanagement of the oyster resources of the Chesapeake Bay. The first half is a review of the biology, and the second goes into all of the politics and problems of trying to manage an open fishery. Much of what is said rings true today.

I'm a user of 3D Studio R4, and so I thought that I could easily transfer the lofting skills into 3ds max without too much of a problem. This book, however, doesn't use many of the techniques used in the Inside 3DStudioR4 book by New Riders. It's definitely not for beginning users looking to learn the fundamentals of using 3DSmax. I was disappointed at its learning curve, but I assume if you're comfortable with 3DSmax1, then this book might be for you. If somebody knows a book for 3DSmax2 that is in the same vein as Inside 3DStudio R4, then please email me ;)

Many books on the market will give you step by step instructions how how to create a scene, or create certain effects. Although this is sometimes handy, it doesn't easially allow the user to incorperate the skills they learned into their own work.

Inside 3D Studio Max shows you the concepts behind how the program works, and allows you to apply these concepts, and skills to your own work, rather than a preformatted tutorial. It is this fact, however, that makes the book not extremely useful for modelers who are new to the program. This book often speaks of the manual which ships with 3DS Max, and the writer made it clear that this was not yet ANOTHER MANUAL. Inside 3D Studio Max explores how to expand your ability.

If you have no prior modeling practice, read the manual which ships with Max, then buy this book. If you do that, you will appreciate what is taught in this massive book.

This is an overall GREAT book, and it has really helped me to become a much better 3D artist.

There's a thing common to all classic books: even if you've read one from cover to cover you discover something new every time you open it. Things that you glossed over earlier suddenly start to make sense. This book is no exception. Since 'Inside 3D Studio Rel. 3' the authors have provided an unique insight into the world's most popular 3D programs. This book raises the standard even further, providing enough grip for the novice and a treasure trove of knowledge of the professional. The best thing about this book is the explanation of the PRINCIPLES behind 3D Studio MAX. Instead of the 'do this-screen shot-do that' methodology, the authors have concentrated in the core ideas behind every tool and procedure. If you want MAX to be an extension to your right brain, get this book. Read it all the time. Do the tutorials. Keep referring to it for ideas. You'll discover what you were missing with other books -- the real goods on making MAX dance to your tune.

This is a great book if you want to trash your body with steroids and end up looking like a deformed monster like the author and the photo's of all the other moron's in this book. There is no honor or sense of personal accomplishment to use beef cattle drugs to attain big muscles.

This book was ok at best. It contained some helpful information that could be useful. I wish it had been more realistic with less mention of steroids. If you take steroids this book might be helpful to you?

I read this book a while ago, and it is still the best of its kind. He pretty much sums up everything a person needs to know to put on muscle mass. It's very practical and easy to read. It's a short book, but he does not use a 100 pages on silly recipes either, which is how most books are done. It's 100% good info. A must read for anyone who wants to put on muscle or is a fan of his.

In the first 55 pages, multiple people and animals are brutally and graphically killed. I had no interest in reading further.

I had read favorable comments about William Kennedy's Albany cycle of novels, so I decided to read this one. As the first book in the series, it seemed to be the logical place to start. Having finished "Legs," all I can say is that it will be a very long time before I read another novel by William Kennedy. Perhaps the books get better as the cycle goes on. I can't say. This one certainly did not whet my appetite to find out.

The novel follows the career of a psychotic gangster named Jack "Legs" Diamond. This thug fascinates the novel's narrator, Jack's lawyer. All the other characters in the book are equally intrigued by Jack and so, we are told, is the entire American public. ("[B]ut heroes and poets followed Jack's tribulations with curiosity, ambivalent benevolence, and a sense of mystery at the meaning of their own response," writes Kennedy.) There was no mystery in my response to this character. Sociopaths just don't fascinate me. Sorry.

I don't understand the attraction that so many writers and filmmakers seem to feel for comic-book gangsters. I suppose we are to take these works seriously because they claim to portray evil in society. They purport to develop themes of moral ambiguity and pose ethical dilemmas. To search out the wellsprings and permutations of evil in the world is certainly a valid literary goal. With all the evils that flared up throughout the last century - fascism, communism, environmental degradation, and racial and ethnic bigotry, there has certainly been a lot to write about. If writers want to plumb these deep themes, that's great. But why resort to these cartoonish sketches of American gangsters to develop the themes?

The writing style in this book reminded me of the "Guy Noir" sketches from the Prairie Home Companion radio show. It's hard to say which one achieves a higher level of realism. At least Garrison Keillor is funny when he does his sketches. You can't say that much for the cliche-ridden drivel that fills page after page of this miserable novel.

This was the first book of Kennedy's that I'd read and am thrilled at the thought of having the rest of his books to look forward to. First of all, it's just the sheer quality of writing. Kennedy dances into, out of and all around the mind of Jack Legs Diamond, the prohibition era gangster. He'll take you close to him, then appal you with his ruthlessness. Kennedy is essentially trying to deal with a knot of myth and cliche. Legs' story has been played over again and again in literature and film. He really was the good-time gangster with the faithful wife and show girl mistress, the quick one-liners and aggressive ambition. This may have appealed to a writer, but how then to humanize him? Kennedy succeeds mainly because of the voice(s) through which he approaches the story. Marcus, Legs' lawyer, is the perfect guide - people tell lawyers their stories and here, he has passed them on. But the narrative is never that simple, flipping from waiter's anecdotes to mistress's yearnings, and all without losing or confusing a reader. Kennedy presents an incredible portrait. It simply doesn't matter whether or not he has figured out who Jack Diamond really was, for he has imagined an incredible three dimensional replacement of his own.

I hate to admit that I've been defeated by a book, but this one did it. I absolutely could not finish it. While the premise was good enough, and the opening engaging, the plot's jumps in time were badly handled and the story really began to drag early. I can't for the life of me imagine what Kennedy was thinking when this otherwise good author came up with such a mishmash!

Having first read Ironweed and Billy Phelan, The Flaming Corsage fit right into the mix. I found the structure a bit choppy but the story of Katrina, or is it the story of Edward's love of Katrina, to be most compelling.Every character, no matter how small, is as true as life itself. Tragedy, crime, class struggle, vengence, loss, carnality, and finally madness played out on a finely drawn historical background. I cried for them all.

I had to write something to counteract that unfair review by the gentleman from Switzerland. Is _The Flaming Corsage_ Kennedy's best? Nope (that w/b Very Old Bones, no contest). This isn't the first book to start with on Kennedy; since several characters show up from other books of Kennedy's Albany Cycle (Ironweed and Legs, I believe), it is helpful to read those first to get a better appreciation of some of the implied goings-on of this text; it certainly helps with the time-jumpyness of the story, which goes back and forth between the late 1800s and early 1900s, right before Francis Phelan drops the baby...in another book.

Kennedy has a natural gift for storytelling, but as my previous sentence might imply, there's a sort of neo-Faulknerian insularity in _Corsage_; it helps to know about the other novels Kennedy wrote, and maybe even Kennedy's own life as a budding playwright himself (interesting parallel btw. the play in this book, and Kennedy's own progress in getting his first play produced), before tackling this one; otherwise it may make for a fairly confusing 200 pages. But insiders would disagree with me on that. And that's my point.

Memo to Mr. Kennedy...when _Roscoe_ is finished, please, PLEASE come to Bellingham to promote your work!

Make no mistake, William Manchester (1922-), who knew John F. Kennedy personally, can be a great writer at times. His two-volume biography of Winston Churchill (sadly, never to be completed now that Manchester is aging and ill) is superb, and so is "The Glory and the Dream", his history of the GI generation from 1932-1972. But when it comes to the Kennedys, Manchester's objectivity and tendency to hero-worship simply fails him, and has led to plenty of criticism and controversy over the years. In my opinion, "One Brief Shining Moment" is easily one of the worst books ever written about President Kennedy, and is an embarrassment to Manchester's otherwise brilliant career. Manchester doesn't just praise JFK in this book, he almost fawns over him, and it's obvious that he sees JFK as a modern King Arthur presiding over a (White House) Camelot. His chapter titles for this book tell it all - "There thou layest" is his final chapter in which he specifically links Kennedy to the Arthurian legends, and indulges in plenty of purple prose. As in his other Kennedy books, Manchester loathes Lyndon Johnson, and in this work he more clearly links LBJ with Mordred - Arthur's (JFK's) great enemy and the villain of the Camelot (Kennedy) legend - than in his previous Kennedy books. In Manchester's prose, LBJ is little more than a redneck boor, a country hick whose crude habits, such as deer hunting, "horrified" the urbane, elegant, and intellectual JFK. In Manchester's view Lyndon Johnson was the "anti-Kennedy" - this despite the view held by many modern (and far more objective) historians that it was Johnson, and not JFK, who was the critical force behind the great Civil Rights and anti-poverty legislation passed in the mid-sixties. This book repeats virtually every legend and myth about JFK as fact - that the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 wasn't really JFK's fault, but the CIA's, President Eisenhower's, etc. Kennedy's womanizing wasn't anything that his predecessors (and successors) haven't done, so what's the big deal? And, of course, if JFK had only lived none of the massive problems of the later sixties would have happened. According to Manchester, Kennedy would "definitely" have pulled out of Vietnam - hence no Vietnam War, no dead American soldiers or riots on college campuses, etc. If JFK had only lived the civil rights mess - such as the race riots in the mid-to-late sixties - would never have happened, as blacks somehow "trusted" JFK more than they did Lyndon Johnson, and would therefore have listened to JFK's urgings not to riot in the streets. Of course, Manchester offers virtually no evidence to support these claims - he simply writes them as if they were "facts" accepted by everyone. In Manchester's rosy view, Kennedy is simply perfect, with almost no flaws or warts (and those few that exist only "prove his humanity"). If you still believe the Camelot legends of John F. Kennedy's Presidency and still have a romantic view of the man, then you'll LOVE this book, as it takes the Camelot myth and runs wild with it. But if you're looking for a more balanced and fair-minded work about JFK, then this is probably the LAST book you'll want to read. I've read many books about the Kennedys - some favorable and some critical - but this book is easily the least objective and balanced pro-Kennedy account that I've ever read. If you do choose to read this book, I would suggest you then read several other, more balanced Kennedy books. Richard Reeve's "President Kennedy: Profile of Power" is excellent, as is Herbert Parmet's "Jack: The Struggles of John F. Kennedy".

A portrait of one of the United States' greatest presidents is not only a study of the politics of his administration, but the human himself. This book goes on about his qualities and how he acts. The book outlines a lot about some of the events that took place while he was in office. And I, having not been alive during his rule, found it very boring. I have no idea about half the things they talk about in the book. That is why my opinion may be debatable as others may have more of a background concerning these events. This book was written before he was assassinated. "Portrait of a President" really outlines Kennedy and what he was like, every single detail. If you want to read up about past events, read this book. If you want to read about who he truly was, read this book. If you want to take a nap, read this book.