I'm glad not to be alone in seeing the Harry Potter books as only an empty marketing success and Zipes is acute when he comments on the banality of "Americanized" culture continued today by media giants like Disney. But Zipes is guilty of the same mamby pamby moralism that he criticizes in others, if you've read his Oxford Book of Fairy Tales you'll find that it's an unimaginative collection of innocuous speech codes and flaky feminist paranoia which is tedious and boring. Much of the "homogeneity" he complains about in popular culture comes from the dictates of "least objectionable programming" which advertisers like and is not unlike the political correctness found in elite Western institutions, where Zipes hails from obviously. J.K. Rowlings caricatures are embarrassingly "diverse" as if from a from a sensitivity training pogram which good leftists like Zipes should respect after all. Zipes reiterates all the liberal platitudes which have become suburban marketing clichés. Although he doesn't exactly advocate body piercing or tattoos. Not yet anyway. In short it's difficult to see where Zipes complaints lie since corporate progressives are pretty much dictating his own taste.

In this collection of essays based on speeches and lectures, the author - an admirer of Adorno - poses questions that should concern parents and teachers everywhere: Who decides what is "appropriate" literature for children? How are children introduced to this literature, and what do they make of it?

The first four chapters of the book, peppered with the somewhat off-putting jargon of literary theory, deplore the vertical integration of publishing empires, the marketing of books in association with toys, games, gadgets, T-shirts, etc., which results in "cultural homogenization" of the children. Adults decide "what's good for children" and use literature, among other tools, to manipulate and control them.

In chapters 5-9, the discussion gains momentum by using concrete examples of literature written for children. Changing attitudes toward Grimms' Fairy Tales and the "Struwwelpeter" stories of Heinrich Hoffmann have spawned multiple translations, bowdlerizations, dramatizations and parodies. The author shows how the "sexist" content of most fairy tales (the hero is almost always a male) has triggered feminist re-interpretations. Finally, there is no "authentic" version of fairy tales; all of them, including the ones collected by the Brothers Grimm, have been "contaminated", i.e. adapted and collated from multiple sources.

The final chapter on the phenomenal success of the Harry Potter books seems to be the one most American readers have focused on. It stresses the stereotypical aspects of the stories and the commercial hype that attended their release, and, again, their sexist nature - one of the author's pet peeves.

While some of these arguments seem excessively gloomy, all of them deserve our thoughtful consideration.

While I admire Zipes work in general, I think he's missed the point about Harry Potter. Zipes remarks that Harry is a classic boy scout, a straight arrow (...). He complains that the novels follow a tedious and grating fairy tale formula (...). The only difference between Harry and anyone else, according to Zipes, is that Harry has a lightning-shaped scar on his forehead (178).

Zipes misses the point on the importance of the scar - the scar is the central metaphor of the series and the importance of scars and wounding says something about our culture's adoption of this particular hero.

I have loved L'amour since I was a child, it's family history really but this book is a sad example of his work. The words were corny and sappy and the plot fairly predictable. The end left much to be desired. For an excellent book try: Grub Line Rider or the Chick Bowdrie series

This is the first guide to represent all three caucasian nations in one book. However it does not take into account the sensitivity of some of the issues among the three nations and could have been much more accurate. Nagorno Karabakh is still de jure a part of Azerbaijan and including it in armenian section contributes even more to widening the gap between the two nations. Nagorno Karabakh indeed is a very sensitive subject and i would urge the unsophisticated visitor to do some extensive research prior to making conclusions. I am not surprised to find the armenian reviewer insulting the Georgian and the Azeri one. What can you do: armenian extreme national chauvinism blinds them. Indeed, if you look at the map of caucasus and do some research you will notice that armenia has problems with each one of its neighbors except for Iran. This is the kind of discussion that LP book leads us towards and to avoid it i urge everyone interested in the region to turn to Elliot book.

I normally like LP books. But for this region you should instead buy the Bradt Guide (for Georgia) or the one from Trailblazer (for Azerbaijan & Georgia). The reasons are clear from all the other reviews here!

This guide book follows the standard Lonely Planet format of providing not only information about the country, but a wide selection of accommodation and tips for the independent traveller. In my opinion, it does a fair job. The book, however, has to compare to other guide books on the same region. And there are a few very good ones around, e.g. Roger Rosen and the Bradt book on Georgia, which did better. I found the book rather thin. It is full of useful facts, but failed to convey the magic of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. A good guide makes people who do not know the country at all want to go there. This one doesn't. Perhaps it would be better to beef it up a little in the next edition rather than concentrate only on listing towns.

I purchased the guide to help me study for the PE. This book is divided into several chapters, each covering a different area of mechanical engineering. The chapters were written by various contributing authors. Although some of the chapters were helpful in my studies, overall I was very disappointed with the book. There are numerous errors in the formulas and example problems which can lead to a lot of time wasted on figuring out why your answer does not agree with theirs. For example, a good deal of the text from a chapter on kinematics and dynamics of machinery came from Norton's book Design of Machinery. However, the PE review author did not copy some of the equations correctly. Fortunately, I had both books so I could find the discrepancy with a minimum of wasted time.

Another disappointment was the chapter on control systems. Most of the chapters had several example problems so that you could see how to solve them. However, the control systems had only three problems, two of which were on how to find transfer functions. The information in the chapter was difficult to follow and instead I relied on my undergraduate books.

Also disappointing was that the answers to the problems from each chapter were in a separate book. The author claims that this was done so that you could bring the review book into the exam with you. However, to the best of my knowledge, in every state you are allowed to bring any material that you wish with you to the exam.

A better option for a review book would be Mechanical Engineering Reference Manual for the Pe Exam : For the Pe Exam by Michael R. Lindeburg. This title is available from Amazon.com.

No mater which book you choose, in the end you need to study pretty hard to pass this exam. Good luck with your studies.