This is a classic book which describes how two people's bodies physiologically respond when they interact. This is important stuff, considering how profoundly blood pressure can rise with a simple conversation. Lynch put years into exploring this.

The book helped me get the keys to the game. It so sweet. The book had all the answers to my question and a good buy.

if you're looking for a more in-depth analysis, you might want to look elsewhere, but for straightforward facts about Lynch films, this is a great guide. it systematically goes through a series of catagories (cast/crew, production history, cut scenes, etc. ; also some weirder catagories like "deja vu," "apocrypha,"- all of these lend to a greater understanding of the material in lynch's films) this ultimately ended up being the most helpful book on lynch I read, if only because it made finding actual facts about each subject really easy

Hughes' book is an indispensable addition to the bookshelf of the recent Lynch initiate, casual fan, or long-time follower of Lynch's career and work. Even trivia magnets will find numerous new and fascinating facts and anecdotes.

This is the rare book that can be used either as a career overview, reference work, or just a worthwhile, enjoyable read. The book is divided into sections, one for each work up to and including Mulholland Drive [not only film and TV works] and each is subdivided into categories such as trivia, cut scenes, availability, Lynch Mob (reappearances of members of Lynch's stable of frequent collaborators), or Lynch's own comments on each work. The index is very thorough as well, so the book can be enjoyed non-chronologically in bite-size pieces if desired.

Hughes has gone to the horse's mouth for many of the relevant facts and observances, having interviewed Lynch himself and many who work with him. The book is well-stocked with information, opinion and analysis without coming across as dry or pedantic. I'm very glad I picked it up.

Not nebulous and overly general like some works about Lynch, or a collection of the opinions of one writer like some others, Hughes' book should be purchased and read by anyone with an interest in the work of David Lynch,or in the wide-ranging, well-rounded and fascinating man himself.

3 thumbs up. Buy and keep near TV.

Let me start off by saying that this review may be a little prejudiced. I helped David Hughes collect some of the movies and info for the book, and became buddies with him in the process. However, all that aside this is a great book. Rather than being culled from "found" interviews and information, slopped together with a little psychoanalysis and fanfare, David has based his book on three things 1) an obsessive love of all things Lynchian, 2) an obsessive **knowledge** of all things Lynchian, and 3) a personal meeting with Mr. Lynch himself, which allowed this book to have interviews, quotes, opinions, etc. from the man himself that no other source in the world has.
In addition to being the ultimate book for the ultimate Lynch fan, this book has everything you could want in a comprehensive "guide" to Lynch for those wanting to immerse themselves in the Lynch universe for the first time. Full color photos, a VERY detailed episode by episode guide to Twin Peaks, information on his newest projects (Mulholland Drive, his internet ventures), as well as those that never made it (One Saliva Bubble, Rocket Ronnie, etc.).
To sum it up, I believe anybody interested in Lynch should buy this book. It is intelligently written, thoroughly researched, and a joy to read. Lastly, I believe this book can pass the one test no other book about Lynch has been able to (to my knowledge): I defy you to find a factual mistake in this book. While I won't discuss it here, believe me that others are rife with them and this is a topic often discussed on my email discussion group. As a matter of fact, if any one is interested in learning more about David Lynch, discussing him and his works, and, as an extra bonus, getting to meet the author of this book, David Hughes (he is a frequent poster to the list) go to the yahoo groups website, sign in, and go to Lynchians! Enjoy the book!

I read The New Money Masters after the Market Wizards and the New Market Wizards. When I saw "winning investment strategies of: Soros, Lynch, Rogers, etc etc on the front cover, I immediately bought it. Like any trader who jumps into the market without a plan or thorough study, I lost this trade. Train tried to portrait what's in the masters brains but he failed. Even worse, his writing skill had been quite bad to convince me to complete the whole book. Well, how am I supposed to expect something from a 379 page book that carries 147 pages of appendix?

If you want to read a concise book about the investment styles and philosophies of recent great investors this book might be the one for you. Any student considering asset management as a career should read this one as well as The Money Masters, its predecessor.

I would encourage everyone to understand the difference from this book and its predecessor. This book is primarily focused on investors that became household names in the 1980s such as: Jim Rogers, Michael Steinhardt, Philip Caret, George Soros, George Michaelis, John Neff, Ralph Wanger, and Peter Lynch.
The prior book, The Money Masters, deals with Golden Age investors who, for the most part, attained their reputations prior to the crash of 1973 and 1974.

Both of Train's books are in the form of interviews he has with them. Train's writing is crisp and entertaining, and his interviews uncover many pearls of wisdom applicable to any investor's philosophy.

The biggest brand name interviewed here, for most, is Peter Lynch who ran Fidelity's flagship Magellan fund. Lynch pioneered a consumer approach to the investing process and invested using a hybrid of the growth and value style that has come to be known within the industry as GARP, standing for Growth At A Reasonable Price. Both Soros and Rogers have fairly interesting ideas about the nature of investing and the sentiment behind it. Both of them worked at Soros' Quantum Fund, which was the largest and most successful hedge fund for decades and left both of them extremely rich.

If anyone is interested in books on the people behind the financial industry read Money Masters, New Money Masters, Predators Ball, Money Culture, Den of Theives and F.I.A.S.C.O. 25 Investment Classics and Goldman Sachs: the Culture of Success are other notable books. I gave the book 4 stars because, while it was very concise and well written I didn't find any information within the book that was of great help to me. It was entertaining and informative but not ground breaking or made me say "AH HAH" or have that light bulb go off in my head.

sorry if you expected a how-to in 25 words or less; the guys highlighted within could think- arriving at creative solutions, work obsessively or at least- with discipline [ check out Rogers' work sheet in the appendix..], and were rock solid in their convictions .....

good to see efforts like these highlighted in the newest go-go era, in which for a lucky few- monster payoffs, quickly, were more common than lottery winnings. [ I know more than a couple who've gone from 15 to 500 in a virtual heartbeat, sometimes with no more conviction than : 'Sure, why not!! ' That's not how these people scored. Nor how most of us ever will.]

Regarding, Train- I'd be inclined to buy a book of his blindly; can't imagine him disappointing.

Charles Brockden Brown's importance in the field of American literature is indisputably very high; thus, how unfortunate it is that his works are so unknown to us today. Were it not for H.P. Lovecraft's mention of him in his essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature," I myself would remain ignorant of his very existence. Brown is arguably the father of the American novel, a brave pioneer in the era of the early Republic. This man set upon himself the noble purpose of writing fiction for a living, going against the wishes of his family and the dictates of contemporary society. Had there been no Charles Brockden Brown, there may never have been a Poe--at least, not Poe as we know him today.

The story is an Americanized Gothic romance. The spirit of Gothic literature pervades the tale, but the setting has been transferred from old castles and courtly settings to a recognizably American rural landscape which is preeminently beautiful rather than spooky. The horrors described so effectively by Brown are borne in the minds of the characters. The female protagonist Clara narrates the tortured history of her family. Her father dies mysteriously, perhaps by spontaneous combustion, ostensibly due to his failure to follow God's will in his life. She enjoys a happy adult life with her brother and his wife until a stranger named Carwin appears and quickly becomes a part of their inner circle. Carwin eventually becomes Clara's tormentor. She, her brother, and their mutual friend Pleyel all hear mysterious, unexplained voices warning them of danger and imparting fateful news on several occasions. Her brother, deeply religious like his father, is greatly affected by these phenomena--how much so we learn later in the novel. Carwin fatefully destroys Clara's life when his evil designs paint her as a harlot in Pleyel's eye. Her unrequited love for Pleyel is now met with his condemnation of her--the agony of the charges against her is particularly poignant in the early American era in which the story takes place. On the fateful night, she discovers Carwin hiding in her home, and he admits to having had murderous designs on her. Her sorrows are greatly magnified the following day by the murder of her brother's wife and five children by none other than her own beloved brother. She blames Carwin for having influenced her brother to commit murder, but we later learn that dementia itself is almost surely to blame for her brother's wrongs. Before the tale ends, she faces a confrontation with both Carwin and her murderous brother, an experience which she is fortunate to survive.

The tale itself is wonderful. The suspense Brown draws out and continually heightens is first-rate. Clara's encounters with voices and human spirits hidden in the darkness of her bedroom are spine-tingling. The language of the novel does make it a work that requires some concentration on the part of the reader and may serve to frustrate some, but I think it greatly magnifies the horrific aspects of the tale. The dialogues of the actors are admittedly overdramatic and drawn out. No one speaks in this book; rather, everyone makes speeches. The protagonist often resorts to long laments of her great woe and asks how she can possibly go on with the story. Despite such dramatics on her part, though, Clara is clearly a brave, independent woman (reflecting Brown's strong and admirable commitment to the rights of women). Overall, the tale delivers a buffet of the passive voice style of writing, which I for one refuse not to love; even the most unimportant sentences are graced with a flowery, beautiful aspect.

In terms of the Gothic element to the story, one cannot say that the supernatural aspects are wholly disproved in the end--to some extent they are, but not to such an extent that Wieland's murderous actions can be explained by them. Clearly, Wieland did hear voices other than those made by Carwin the biloquist. The air of mystery that remains about Wieland's dementia and the causes of it makes the ending more successful than I feared it would be once I learned of the power of ventriloquism exercised by Carwin to dictate many of the related events. My only complaint is with the final chapter, which is basically an epilogue in the protagonist's journal. Inexplicably, it introduces a new character to explain something about a minor character whom I frankly could not even remember.

This book has a very original plot line. The influence of the bazzar, mystical death of the father of this family set off much questioning and fear when similar occurances happen decades later. You will be desperatly trying to piece together what is going on as this family is ripped apart. The true cause of these events is far to bazzar to be guessed. This essencial Gothic classic can be a bit slow to read at parts, but the conclusion is well worth hanging on for.

Charles Brockden Brown has been almost completely forgotten today. Unlike the more famous James Fenimore Cooper, who is often accorded the title of the first American novelist that Brown should bear, Brown's reputation is largely borne up by those few literary critics who love the earliest roots of American fiction. "Wieland" is Brown's best novel, and still quite readable today as a Gothic novel (although the secret of the villain seems rather mundane today, as the 'power' he exhibits has been played largely for laughs since the days of vaudeville and radio). Brown was born in Philadelphia in 1771, trained in the law, was one of the first to try and make a living as a writer in the early years of the American republic, and died young in 1810. If you like Gothic novels, or you have a passion for early American literature, you will enjoy "Wieland." Myself, I prefer him to Cooper, who has been forever rendered laughable in my mind by Mark Twain's hilarious essays on Cooper's literary sins.

As a student currently researching a dissertation on Kitaj, I must say that this handy little book is an excellent resource for anyone interested in the study of this fascinating artist. The texts are rather dense and scholarly (the general reader should check out Marco Livingstone's monograph) but they cover a very wide range of issues and interpretations, some of which have never been dealt with in depth before. One such example is Pat Gilmour's essay on Kitaj's importance as a screenprinter, something rarely touched on in the literature, mainly due to Kitaj's re-evaluation of his early work.

Furthermore, other essays explore Kitaj's relation to tradition, his interest in cinema, as well as the social and historical context surrounding some of his allusive paintings. There is even a rather critical essay by Terry Atkinson (formerly of Art & Language) which takes Kitaj to task for daring to carry on the "fetish" of painting. Rather, suggests Atkinson, artists ought to give up such nonsense and sit around pondering the nature of Modernism instead. Oh well, we can't all be philosophers, yet it's heartening that there are still artists alive such as Kitaj who can carry on producing painting which invites informed and stimulating discussion in books such as this.

The Future of Modern Music (TFMM) highlights the tradition and changing role of modernity in classical music of the 20th century. As a student participant of the 2001 summer CCMIX program ... I firsthand gained from the pedagogy founded on sound based composition which is the focus of both CCMIX and McHard's book. ....

I categorize TFMM as a book that attempts to place the compositional modernity of the last century into a hyper modern role in the present. By hyper modernity I posit that TFMM supports the Western assumption that the detached theoretical viewpoint is superior to the involved practical viewpoint. Nevertheless, TFMM succeeds in relating the important transitions that classical music has made in the 20th century and is a worthy book to read especially for the classical listener who is not familiar with the advances of composition in this past century.

I will not argue the fact that Joyce is a master of the English language. Nor will I argue that at times he has very good insight into the psychological motivations of art, religion, and sociology. He possesses both of these talents. However, the manner in which they are presented in this book is simply disappointing. I am an avid reader and can appreciate thick philosophy woven artistically into an intriguing story. This book has sparse bits of philosophy and an occasional artistic stitch, but by and large fails to create a fabric that sparks my interest. Throughout this book, I found myself hopelessly holding onto the idea that, "this is one of the greatest books ever written in the English language," and was left there holding onto that hope afterwards because it failed to deliver anything more.

The story drags at the beginning, and while the minutia of Stephen's life is important to understand where he ends up, its focussed on way too much; the first 80 pages are useless and will leave you rolling your eyes for relief. Next, while a certain degree of specificity is important in terms of describing a scene, the precision to which he describes things, largely irrelevant things, can only be construed as "filling" to make this very short book acceptably long. Say something. Repeat it for emphasis. But don't fixate on it for pages and pages and pages. Lastly, the "meat" of the book, that being what actually made the man into an artist, is so sparse and loosely hung on the frail skeleton of plot, that any person reading this book hungry for some sort of insight or depth is ravishing and unsatisfied at the end, anxious to be filled up by some other book.

Kundera is much better at doing what this "master" was intending to do. He cuts off the fat and leaves raw, creative, chiseled, philosophical muscle on the bone for a reader to savor. I wish I would have spent my time rereading something of his instead of deciding to pick up a book about the very slow and boring progression of this artist's perception.

"Portrait" is arguably Joyce's best work, truly a masterpiece from the greatest writer of the 20th century if not ever. Even if you are not a writer (I'm an engineer), after reading Joyce you will want to write--albeit sadly not as well as Joyce, but you will want to write nonetheless. As for the rare bad review that you may see on this forum, well, there's no accounting for taste! More seriously, it can be a tough read and people often get more out of it the second time through (for fellow members of the Television Generation, we call that "replay value"). So give the heretics who scored it two or three stars a few years for their tastes to mature, and we'll see what they say when they read it again.

When I first read Joyce, I did not catch many of the nuances of Portrait, so I understand how some may find this a challenging book. Hence, I highly recommend buying a copy of the "The Dubliners"--the Dover Thrift edition costs $1.50, though it has no notations. (Also, if you are a busy person, a taste of Joyce may help motivate you.) Dubliners is a collection of short (4-10 page) stories that, beyond being excellent in themselves, will help you get acclimated to Joyce. And for a little more than a buck, you can afford to throw it in to some order to get a nice preview of Joyce before spending the time to read Portrait. (Not that Portrait takes a long time--it's just over 200 pages.)

"A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" is an impressionistic, semi-autobiographical work in which Joyce, through the character of Stephen Dedalus, relates the events and impressions of his youth and young adulthood. The novel flows effortlessly from Stephens first memories as "baby tuckoo" to his final journal entries before embarking on a promising literary career in Paris. In the pages between, Joyce's virtuosity of prose explodes in passages with frightening intensity. Even those who dislike Joyce's confusing, sometimes-infuriating style, should be awestruck by his undubitable writing ability.

However, as anyone reading this review should already know, despite his virtuosity, Joyce is not for everyone. He is simultaneously one of the most beloved and despised writers of the twentieth century. For those of you who are unfamiliar with his work and hesitantly contemplating becoming acquainted with it, here is some food for thought: first, start with "Portrait," it is far more accessible than his subsequent works and a better introduction to them than the also-excellent "Dubliners" is. Second, do not try to judge "Portrait" by the same standards as other books. Joyce is not trying to tell an amusing story here, he is trying to relate the impressions of a young man torn between two existences: a religious or an aesthetic. If you are a meat-and-potatoes type of reader, meaning the kind of reader who prefers a "story," Joyce will not be your cup of tea. Lastly, Joyce's reputation perhaps does his works injustice. Yes, he is extremely encyclopedic and takes on many themes in his works. But perhaps too many readers get sidetracked from the aesthetic merits of his works by concentrating solely on the intellectual values. It is his prose which can be universally appreciated, whether you understand the ideas it portrays or not. His prose is his bread-and-butter. Some people pompously brag of their "getting" Joyce without actually appreciating what he does. I don't claim to be a bonafied Joyce scholar, but it is my experience that to enjoy Joyce is to appreciate "literature for literature's sake." If you enjoy literature, poetry or prose, than you should enjoy the style with which Joyce writes, that is to say, all styles. And he has seemingly mastered all styles. That is not to say that the many thematic levels in which his novels succeed are to be ignored, for their expression is not seperate from the means with which Joyce does it, but congruous with it.

To read Joyce is to revel in the limits of artistic creation and then to read on as the limits are then stretched further.

Bon Apetite!

It is a great book to read and has alot of helpful information included in the book. If you are at a tough spot in the game chances are this book could really help you out.

This Book it a very useful Book For playing this Game .. BecauseIt have all The Secrets of the Game in one Book .. For LEON and CLAIRSstory

This or anygame now a days is really hard to beat. If you buy a book like this strickly for the perpose of walking through the game, the you've wasted money on the game. However if you by it to simply help you through the impossable areas then you bought wizely and got your money out of the book, and game.

I got this book to support West Point's bicentennial. Now that I have actually looked at it (and I put it that way because it is mostly pictures and not much text), I find it disappointing. The text, though properly written and edited, is quite boring. Many of the pictures are amateurishly blown up to the extent that they are washed out. The book, or glorified brochure, or whatever you want to call it, has the feel of being hastily put together to get out in time to make money for all concerned. To me, that takes from what should have been a noble purpose. I don't think it succeeded in achieving that noble purpose. In fact, now that the Party is over, I wouldn't recommend it.

I admit I didn't watch the PBS program to which this book is 'companion,' but I have no doubt that the pretty pictures on TV matched the pretty pictures in this book. In fact, that's probably the biggest impression I carry away from this book: it's very ... colorful. The text gives an adequate history of the US Military Academy, hitting on all the requisite high points: Thayer, Lee, Flipper, MacArthur, Eisenhower, Hollen, and so on. The images -- portraits, old maps, memorabilia from the USMA museum, etc -- decently illustrate the text (though the contemporary photos mixed in with the historic ones are sometimes rather *non sequitur* to what's being discussed). Among the great piles of books and videos that have been produced to observe West Point's bicentennial, I'm sure this picture book will be very popular. But I suspect it will mean more to people who didn't themselves actually attend the school. Those who did will find little that's new -- and despite the Academy's official cooperation with this production, may find the book too, well, glossy for their tastes.

Partly because I grew up as an Army brat, I've always been fascinated by the military and naval academies, as far back as the 1950s TV series "The Long Grey Line." This coffee table book is a companion to a special on PBS marking the 200th anniversary of President Jefferson's founding of a military educational institution at West Point, up the Hudson from New York. It's a gorgeous piece of work, with as much attention given to the text as to the pictures, tracing the Academy from its floundering first few years, to the sixteen-year reign of Superintendent Sylvanus Thayer (the true father of the school), through the classes that supplied most of the leaders on both sides of the Civil War (who all had served together in the War with Mexico), through the long years leading up to World War I. Fifty-nine of the cadets in the Class of 1915 ("the Class the Stars Fell On") became general officers, and one became president. During the later days of the Vietnam War, cadets seldom left the school, they were so badly treated by civilians their own age, and there were several major cheating scandals -- the author doesn?t whitewash any of that stuff -- but the Academy, having revised itself almost continuously for two centuries -- seems to be coming back. This is a beautiful book.