A wonderful collection of stories that you'll dip into over and over. Russell's social and political concerns (freedom, equality, social justice) are combined with clever, witty stories that use the SF genre without getting bogged down in science.

Russell has a wonderful and unique sense of humor. This is a priceless picture of one of the special authors of the "Golden Age". These stories will stay with you for many years.

Excellent Short Stories you won't find anywhere else (unless you kept all your Analog's like I did).

I love world records, and there is no better book to find them in. Great bathroom literature, as it has pleased my family for many years with its inciteful and amusing facts.

My best friend Robert and I have determinied that this is the quintessential book about life in Lawrence, Kansas (despite the fact that it takes place, for the most part, in France). This is, very basically, the story of a beautiful intelligent woman trapped in a small boring life in a small boring town who in making up ways to keep herself interested and entertained destroys her life. Like so many people we know. The End.

Having read two of Alan Russell's books, including the Hotel Detective and the Fat Innkeeper, I was totally unprepared for this excellent novel. Although the sense of humor is still evident, Mr. Russell approaches the subject of multiple personalities much more seriously while providing the reader with a lesson in classical myths (read it and you will understand...) Exceptional read which will be enjoyed by those already familiar with Mr. Russell's work as well as new readers. This book should be in the Amazon top 50 list

This book shows his master of the darkroom, making all his works unique to themselves. If you are into black & white photography and printing this book is a revelation of what is possible.

Alan Russell's latest book is not my favorite. Multiple Wounds still holds that honor. But Exposure is a very compelling read and would make a welcome addition to any beach bag.
Sparked by the idea that a paparazzo was responsible for the death of Princess Diana, the story takes off from there. It pulls the surprisingly likeable paparazzo protagonist (and the reader) into a bizarre confrontation with a monstrous villain through a series of plausibly rendered plot twists.
Both the scene that triggers the action and the scene that caps it are edge-of-your-seat vivid. Russell's sense of humor, sometimes slapstick and sometimes sly, plays hide and seek throughout the story, and a good helping of Hollywood trivia rounds out the book's attractions. This is a perfect book to take on a long, lazy summer weekend.

In the thriller Exposure, the eminently readable Alan Russell has pulled out all the stops. Excellent writing, complex characters, an intricate plot and colorful settings from Rio to Paris to Hollywood blend to form a terrific read.

The intriguing primary character is Graham Wells, a papparazzo with a secret and a conscience. The reader is pulled into Wells' personal struggle as he grapples with danger, political intrigue and the heady world of celebrity.

Whether you enjoy novels of mystery, adventure or romance, Exposure is sure to satisfy.

It's hard to say if there is a "typical" Alan Russell novel. He's given us whodunits, funny mysteries, psychological thrillers, and now suspense.

To date, my favorite Russell novel was the hilarious Hotel Detective but this book is equally enjoyable but in a very different way. It's gripping and suspenseful and the kind of book you want to finish in one sitting.

Exposure gives us a very unusual hero, a paparazzo. It was fun learning about the tricks of the trade, and seeing the world through Graham Wells's eyes. I never thought I'd find myself sympathizing or empathizing with a character like this--but Russell fleshes out a very real human being who is both likeable not so likeable.

What I really liked was the triad of villians. Also, there was a lot of fascinating information about German dueling fraternities.

This book has snappy dialog, great action, and characters with legs and baggage. You don't want to miss this read.

Again an exemplary introduction (the fourth in this series) to the field of stellar and planet formation. However because of the sheer bulk of the material, the editors (or publishers?) have decided to have shorter review articles rather than splitting the book up into two volumes. Although the articles are once again top-notched, their somewhat abbreviated length makes them a bit less useful than a full length Annual Reviews article would have been.

I do have a nitpick about the competing chapters by Konigl & Pudritz and Shu et al. on the acceleration mechanisms for launching jets and outflowing winds from young stars. It's a shame these authors couldn't have put aside differences and worked together. As it is, we have two different competing theories presented separately, instead of a true review covering all the hypotheses proposed for wind launching.

Despite these minor problems, the book is still quite useful. (However because of these problems, it's probably not as useful as PP III had been when it first came out.) I have not had a chance to go through all of the chapters (a truly monster task given the volume's 1400+ pages), but nearly all of the ones I was able to sample were well written, provocative, informative, and highly useful for any researcher in the field. The breadth of coverage is simply amazing, from astrophysics to planetary science, spanning the parsec-sized molecular clouds down to the formation of microscopic inclusions in meteorites in the early solar system. It will be a useful reference for any scientist in the field for years to come.

The "Protostars and Planets" series is a remarkably successful set of books covering (or attempting to cover) the very rapidly growing area of star-and-planet formation and evolution. Far more than a conference proceedings (containing unrefereed reviews), these books have strived (and I think achieved this goal) to give us the balanced overview of a major part of the new astronomy. This IVth volume is no exception. It is most useful for researchers, graduate students, and some undergraduate students (though a guidance on what to read and what to skip from a senior researcher would be a plus).

Like in the previous ones, 2-4 respected specialists in each subject authors have usually been contracted to cooperate on a given chapter (there are about 50 chapters covering the diverse landscape from collapsing molecular clouds to the inner structure of planets). In certain cases (I think I can identify 2), somewhat predictably, the good efforts of the editors failed because of personal animosities between the chosen authors, in which case two chapters instead of one have been published. I do not see this as a problem, except for the unfortunate need to squeeze all the other reviews to fit the overall page limit. Scientifically, I would much rather hear two different stories than one with artificially plastered-over division lines. One other laudable choice made by the editors was the adoption of the usual citation style, and giving up the questionable practice from some previous volumes of bunching up all the cited literature from all chapters at the end of the book (making it impossible to copy a chapter and its references only). A minor gripe is the lack of sufficient references to Web resources. In the long run, of course, they would be less useful ("NOT FOUND: The requested URL was not found on this server.") but in a rapidly developing area of study this applies to some texts as well.

The high quality of the reviews, connected not only with the choice of authors but also the fact that the chapters have been refereed, the timeliness of the reviews (cf. the enormous demand for overviews of extrasolar planetary systems), and finally the nearly-certainty that we will not see any comparable effort for the next 5 to 7 years, all speak strongly in favor of regarding this book as a top position in the field, well worth its price.

For those graduate students and others, who want to see only selected parts of the book, it would be extremely useful if the publisher agreed to provide separate chapters on the web in the pdf format, and access mode discouraging massive downloads to a single site.

A long awaited book from this author since Multiple Wounds.

In this story, the main character is the son of a serial killer. New murders have the same MO of his father who "rode the lightning" 20 years ago. A writer who wrote about his father gets involved in these new murders and finds that the person who discovered one of the bodies is the serial killer's son. When the police find out the link, he's on the lamb.

While the killer's reasoning is a little off (to me anyway), Alan Russell's writing is face paced and he provides a good twist at the end.

Well worth the read, but his other book, Multiple Wounds is more expertly written and researched.

Shame,Alan Russell's sixth novel, presents an unusual premise. What would life be like if you were the son of a serial killer? Caleb Parker escapes from the Texas small town he has grown up in as soon as he can, and seeks a new, anonymous life in San Diego. What he has left behind is the torment of bullies, the sexual predation of a thrill seeking high school girl, and a decidely strange mother. What he discovers in a city of many transients and few natives is his own business, a marriage, and two children. Russell starts the book with a bang. Parker is called in for an "emergency" tree removal, only to stumble on a body, naked, the corspe marked in the same fashion as his notorious father, with the word "Shame". This starts a chain of events that draws in Maryelizabeth Line, a true crime writer and the only person to survive Shame (the father's criminal "nickname".) Line's remininscences are woven into the thread of the story. Russell can tell a story, and Shame is certainly his his fastest paced book. He does a fine job with the character of Caleb. A third major character, a drag queen, provides some humor, but also, surprisingly, some pathos. While the character of Gray Parker seems derivative at times, an amalgamation of Ted Bundy & Hannibal Lector, he is menacing and cunning. His "heir" seems less so. Russell has a fine ear for dialog. His characters are distinct. His sense of place is superb. He captures San Diego vividly, bringing to the 1990's the same sense of place of Wade Miller's post-World War II novels. My favorite Russell novel is still Multiple Wounds, but Shame is a fast-paced, enjoyable read. The original premise and the craftmanship with which is handled is enough to win a ringing endorsement.

Serial murders are a dime a dozen in mystery novels, but this is the first I've read which features the child of a serial murderer (as well as a writer covering the story). A gripping psychological suspense novel with interesting characters (especially the transsexual), plot twists, and fine dialogue. Russell's last book, Multiple Wounds, was a real departure from his comic novels. (Hotel Detective & The Fat Innkeeper are two of my all-time favorites). But Multiple Wounds was occasionally flawed by, in my mind, humor and "tourist" information -- Russell hails from the hospitality industry -- sandwiched in between deep psychoanalysis and mythological allusions. In Shame, he manages to integrate local color and occasional jokes without breaking the mood of the book.

Bill Russell has never been called conventional. With the myriad of self-help, leadership and personal improvement books in the marketplace, it's hard to break through the clutter...RUSSELL RULES clearly does. This book, like the author, is a WINNER.

As a woman, I was a little skeptical of the usefullness of the book, quite expecting a macho look at winning. A lot of kick butt talk and posturing.

I read this book and found the lessons applicable within minutes with my family and other situations we all experience on a daily basis.

The chapters on listening vs. hearing was particularly meaningful and are worth reading and rereading. He also introduces a very unique concept that is simple in meaning but powerful in reality; the concept of outside-in thinking.

This book is for everyone and we are going to introduce it as the first book of its kind to our book club.

you can Never say enough about the Legacy of Bill Russell.The Man has words of Wisdom&He sheds Light on it.this Book brings you into His Views&what got Him to His Destiny.a must read from a Man who Proved on&off the court He was a Winner&one step ahead of the curve.

What a great and inspirational book!!

I bought this for my father for Father's Day and ended up keeping it for myself. I'm not a huge sports fan and as a woman the only thing I knew about Russell was that my Dad worshipped him when I was growing up.

This is one of the best self-improvement books I've read recently. He really understands team work. I've already used his advice at work and I'm seeing results.

Russell has a great sense of humor! My husband enjoyed Russell Rules too.

I recall with pride the sure comfort, during the years of struggle against the American war in Vietnam, afforded by Bertrand Russell's pungent opposition to the same war for the same reasons, all of his astonishing intellectual gifts poised like a sword against the daily lies and betrayal of ideals perpetrated by Washington. While Russell's mathematical exegeses are beyond me, the thrust of his intellectual activity has remained attractive. This concise book (indeed thin, but not incomplete), while not diminishing that attraction, comes a bit like a diatribe exposing those elements of Russell's character that were no doubt conflicted, and yet were more likely an integral part of his intellectual capacity. Ryan's writing is informative, but not terribly appreciative. One feels distanced by Ryan's doubts, rather than educated by his conclusions. Clearly Russell was a complex fellow, inconstant and, in a certain respect, embittered by a life of singularity; it seems however that Ryan does little to penetrate the conflicts down to the bone of understanding them and integrating them into the whole picture of Russell's turbulent life, rather he presents the externals as elements sufficiently interesting in and of themselves, a disservice, I think, to one with a legacy as lingering and controversial as that of Bertrand Russell. The prose is intelligent and clear, and the volume is a typically attractive Oxford Univ. Press offering, small and supple, the presentation suiting the book's tone and content perfectly. I recommend this volume, but it's not everything it could have been.

In Alan Ryan's book there is good, overdue criticism concerning Russell's view of world-government And on the subject of government in general, an interesting observation is that "Russell takes no interest in the creation of legal obstacles to government misbehaviour; he does not suggest a Bill of Rights, for instance. On the whole, Russell assumes throughout that what checks government is the power of social groups rather than the provisions of the legal system...". Russell's exact views on inheritance have always been of interest to me, but they can be confusing.As far as other biographers' reports are concerned, on one hand, one reads that "he rejects the institution of inheritance, and proudly earns his own living" and that "He had given away his inheritance because he thought it wrong to have such an unfair advantage" On the other hand, Russell himself explains that "While I was writing Principia Mathematica I felt justified in living on inherited money, though I did not feel justified in keeping an additional sum of capital that I inherited from my grandmother. I gave away this sum in its entirety...to various educational objects." There are also reports that "he...lived on the income...he had inherited at twenty-one," at that at the turn of the century, at least, "the kind of life led by Russell obviously depended on a small but sufficient independent income" I think this book provides the most concise description of the Russell and his inheritance saying that "He always treated his own money as a social fund,...not in the least alarmed at the prospect of earning his own living once it was gone." A point brought out in this book more than any other biography of Russell is that "For much of his life he plainly felt a contempt for uneducated people which is entirely at odds with the sentimental profession of solidarity with humanity's sufferings....Max Eastman recalled an alarming moment when Russell observed, after a very successful public debate in the 1920s, 'Anyone who takes these debates of ours seriously must be an idiot.'...Russell was more vulnerable than most to the temptation to treat his readers like fools." Moreover, he evidently felt that the financial hardships of Beacon Hill School were such as to be "making him give pot-boiling lectures to stupid audiences and write silly little articles for American newspapers." I was interested in reading Ryan's accounts of how Russell loathed American universities as "departmental, hierarchical, uncollegiate places, dominated by the kind of professionalism which might be acceptable in a law firm but hardly in the groves of academe," and how "Russell was right to think Huxley had stolen almost every idea for his novel from him" Interesting tidbits I learned were that during his 1918 six-month prison term "He read 200 books and wrote two." He acknowledged "the social value of dancing," and that he was "something of a cinema addict." There is confirmation of his belief that "fresh air" is better for children than "towns," and that he "had always taken refuge in his passion for the sea and the mountains." Regrettably, there are reports about Russell that "Many men found him unbearable at close quarters." Also, this biography is quite clear about how Russell had "in 1892...a freedom from acrimony which would have tested...Russell himself in later life." In short, "Russell got angrier as he got older." Things don't seem to change much considering a statement like "what passed for American democracy in the 1920s and '30s was a sham where businessmen pulled the strings which made the politicians dance."