A combination of stimulating scientific insight and breath-taking emotional turmoil, this book dissects the triangular relationship between a terminally inquisitive librarian, a genetics professor with a past and their initial go-between, a young computer operator at odds with the world.

Once more, Powers has written an omnidimensional and witty masterpiece that will leave the reader craving for more. I read the Dutch translation, which is, although not flawless, very true to the original in its depth, brilliance and humour.

Take a couple of days off and take your time to read this book - it's like an endless supply of vitamins for the mind and soul.

A brilliant novel about love, science, music, and the complexity of the human condition. Powers explores our impulse to unravel the mysteries around us (whether cracking the genetic code or excavating the narrative of the enigmatic Dr. Ressler) and our unrelenting impulse towards expression: artistic, verbal, and yes, physical. I'm in full agreement with the reader from Ohio: this is a passionate book. The characters are full-bodied, complex, and driven by a wide spectrum of desires, including love for eachother and for their intellectual pursuits. The prose is amazing, so keep a pen handy while you read if you're in the habit of marking passages you like.

Reminiscent of James Joyce's "Ulysses," The Gold Bug Variations (which has 32 chapters) loosely parallels the structure of Bach's Goldberg Variations while echoing the code-breaking imperatives which drive Poe's short story "The Gold Bug." Powers, like Joyce, uses erudite wordplay and arcane allusions not for their own sake, but to create vivid, three-dimensional characters and to explore the nature of interpretation. The Gold Bug Variations is a thoroughly engaging study of three vital and complex characters whose lives become entangled in a Gordian Knot of a narrative which challenges the reader who would solve it. A former pioneer in genetics research (Stuart Ressler -- aka "wrestler") is the book's protagonist, and his attempts to decipher the DNA code in the 1950s shape the motivations/desires of his two present-day friends, a quirky fine-arts doctoral candidate and a reclusive librarian. The introductory chapter is a poetic microcosm (a seed-germ) of the entire book, and evokes a sense of wonder which is fully commensurate with Power's vision. If you've ever wondered how an entire encyclopedia can be contained on a CD, or how many angels can stand on the head of a pin, I believe that you will find some answers in this incredible book.

We can only hope that Powers can one day surpass his wonderfully brilliant Gold Bug variations, but this may be his second best book. The romantic strands and existential depth of this work are more like Gold Bug than that more intellectual, analytic and distanced treatments of Galatea and Gain. There is a real humanity to this book, while the characters struggle with the meaning of life, especially one life, swimming in (or against) the tide of history.

Powers is not for all tastes because he engages one at the level of ideas (as well). But if you like that stuff, I'd first get Gold Bug, but then I'd choose this.

At the urging of many friends, I finally picked up a novel by Richard Powers; I will never regret the long hours I spent reading and digesting The Prisoner's Dilemma. Although the plot is not as tightly-woven or as compact as I hoped, that is my only real (but minor) complaint about this book. Powers weaves an amazing tale that is both grandiose and haunting. The most skillful aspect of The Prisoner's Dilemna is the way in which Powers accurately represents the relationships between siblings. Having several siblings myself, I appreciate the delicacy with which Powers approaches these characters. Of course, the fact that the novel's plot and theme are virtual mind-trips is also a pleasing touch. This is an entertaining, thought-provoking, emotional, intellectual, and creative piece of fiction. I hope that the rest of his novels are as good or better than this; those I will be happy to give a full five stars!

Taking its title (and part of its story) from the well known group dynamics exercise of the same name, this novel asks us to examine what extreme individualism and self-sufficiency has done to our modern world. It beautifully examines the disintegration of one man as he recognizes the limits of personal initiative and education and the corrosive effect this disintegration has on his family. In a time when our so-called leaders play to our basest and most selfish instincts, this novel asks us to see the real need we have to be able trust each other and work cooperatively for the common good. Powers delivers this message in a fascinating and cleverly written work with complex characters with which we can identify and about whom we care. This is a book well worth reading.

Although there is useful information in this book, there were times when I just could not follow the instructions and even found some that were not complete, there were missing steps. Other times I found that there were no examples for what the author was talking about and I was left in the dark. I keep trying, but I always end up with a headache trying to figure out what the author is talking about.

This book is well worth the money for the "Hidden Tools" alone. I consider myself an intermediate user of Photoshop Elements. I have been tempted lately to buy the full-blown Photoshop to gain the additional capabilities. This book and CD gave me most of the additional tools that I thought I was missing.

The book is not written for beginners. You should have a good understanding of how to use Photoshop Elements before diving into this book. Given the scope of this book, I found the first chapter to be a little too basic. I initially found parts of chapter 2 a little confusing. I never use gradient maps and found the explanation in the book to be somewhat confusing. I went back to my "Photoshop for Dummies" book and re-read the portion on gradient maps. This made the light go on for me on what the author was saying in Chapter 2. I found chapters 3, 4 and 5 the most useful. These chapters dealt with the type of image clean-up I encounter most often. These chapters dealt with curves, which I knew was a feature I missed in Photoshop Elements. Chapter 5 showed some great uses of the History Brush, another missing tool from Photoshop Elements that you get on the CD in the Hidden Tools. The remainder of the book gave some good hints on how to improve your images as well.

I read the whole book, but I am sure that not all was absorbed. I will keep this book close to my computer to use as a reference as I try to fix those difficult to correct images.

The author of the book has made himself available to answer questions on several Photoshop Elements and retouching forums. I highly recommend this book to anyone that wants to go beyond the basics of what is available in Photoshop Elements.

I am a rank beginner to Photoshop Elements and photo enhancement. When I first started reading it, I was nearly scared off, as I didn't know what he was talking about most of the time. However, as he kept saying he would explain this later, I trusted that he would and so far I haven't been disappointed. I am in the process of working my way through the book and am learning more than I could imagine. I sometimes have to go through a lesson a few times to get it, but eventually if I follow the instructions closely, I figure it out. If there is something I can't figure out, there is a website... where one can get more information and ask questions. I am fully satisfied that I've gotten my money's worth with this book and the accompanying CD and would recommend it to anyone.

I read this book because I wanted a great political thriller. The characters, particularly the Chief of Staff (Shaw) and the National Security Advisor (Bender), were wonderfully crafted--brilliant and human at the same time. The author could've made the President a trifle tougher (geez, she's always uncomfortable in a room full of men). There was too much focus on military operations and the concomitant jargon--bore me some more (and I'm an ex-Airborne troop). Still, an excellent few hours of entertainment.

If you like Dale Brown, you'll love this book. Contains the power struggles in Washington focused around the White House, Pentagon, and personalities. On the aviation side, a good read as well. If you like reading high tech espionage books with ample doses of power, intrigue and war, this book is for you. A perfect book to take along on a vacation. Others have commented that Herman wasn't factual with the aviation, the Washington power struggles, and I think he could have closed the story a little better. I don't know about you, but I read to relax, and this one was a fun read. I couldn't wait to get a few moments to take in another chapter or two. I loved it!

This is the first Richard Herman novel I have read, and I was pleased with it's intelligence, and relevance to today's politics and culture. Human relationships, world affairs and the mlitary are portrayed with depth and subtlety. I've noticd all the reviews posted about Herman's books are posted by men. This might give the misleading-if prejudiced- impression that these books are "Wham Band- shoot-em-up" books. Not true. Everyone might enjoy- and benefit- from this book

Ever the skeptic, I was wary approaching this book, promising its "breakthrough approach" to building piano technique. After thinking about it for months, I finally paid my [money] and ordered the book. Let me begin by qualifying this review: While I have read the book, I admit that not enough time has elapsed for me to work on the prescribed exercises in earnest. Therefore, the elusive breakthrough may indeed lurk around the corner. Also, while I disagree with some of Mr. Prokop's conclusions, I am willing to give his exercises a fair chance. On to the review.
The idea of setting the text up like a quasi-mathematical treatise, with "theorems" proposed and "proven," is indeed interesting. However, Mr. Prokop often does not construct cogent arguments to support his claims, and his "proofs" are anything but, completely devoid of logical rigor. When one's aim is to debunk myths about piano technique, it is indeed sufficient to present what mathematicians call counterexamples, which fly in the face of hypotheses, thereby disproving them. However, when making conjectures which form the crux of one's method (such as Mr. Prokop's claim that the extensor muscles, those responsible primarily for the up-stroke of the fingers, are almost exclusively responsible for well-formed technique), much more care should be given toward their support. The end result is that his system is based on rather unconvincing ideas regarding what is responsible for good technique.
That said, there is indeed some worthwhile material in this book. The system Mr. Prokop uses to test certain fingers to determine their development, or lack thereof, seems sound. A brief discussion on the "illusion of speed" is interesting for what it suggests, as is the premise that sub-standard technique is usually due to "problem fingers" bogging down passages. As for prescribed exercises, there are remarkably few to be found in this volume. The bulk of the notated exercises are essentially scale passages and some interval work, which may be useful, but are much more affordably obtained in an inexpensive Hanon volume.
There are some away-from-the-piano exercises, again focusing on the extensor muscles. I again say that I have not given these an adequate trial, so I cannot attest to their usefulness or uselessness.
In short, had this book been about $15 cheaper, I would consider it a fairly sound purchase. However, for its brevity (just over 100 pages) and relative paucity of new information, I believe its price to be unjustified by its content.

As a longtime piano player, I find Richard Prokop's approach to be eminently practical. He illustrates that voluntary movements of body parts are the result of the contraction of muscles. In the case of the fingers, these are the flexor and extensor muscles (along with other muscles). However, a previous reviewer's comment that he subscribes to "the finger strength school of piano playing technique" is inaccurate and misses the point. The emphasis is not on finger strength per se, but on the development of the student's abilities by using methods that relate the peculiarities of human anatomy to the development of piano technique. In this sense the book is brilliant.

Employing logic and theorems, Mr. Prokop gently but convincingly presents a refreshingly clear case for simple and natural exercises designed, yes, for strengthening the fingers, but much more: How do our fingers naturally work when playing a passage? How and why are the muscles of the wrist, fingers and thumb used, and what techniques are necessary for exercising them? How is muscular development essential to technique? What are the relative advantages and disadvantages of large, medium, and small hands? How does synchronization relate to the development of technique? What is the proper positioning of the elbow and hand? What steps should be taken to avoid injury? How much practice is healthy and how much rest is necessary for optimum development? Is it possible to improve one's piano technique away from the piano? Should pianists drink more water? (Again, from a practical and physiological point of view!)

Prokop debunks many of the myths about piano practicing and playing that have plagued and frustrated both students and teachers for generations, by applying reason to experience. He is impressively well prepared in his arguments; backs them up with ample references; and illustrates with extraordinary conciseness the physiology of the hands, wrists and forearms in playing the piano. But most of all, he explains his subject, as only an excellent teacher can, with compelling logic.

This book is a gem for those of us studying piano and living in the real world.

I have yet to read a book on piano technique that can compare with Piano Power. The author's ideas are innovative, thought-provoking and at times quite revolutionary. Mr. Prokop is to be congratulated for his unique contribution to the field of piano pedagogy. For the purpose of clarification, there are 106 pages in Piano Power with 14 pages of exercises for strengthening the extensor muscles of the fingers and wrist. (Mr. Prokop demonstrates clearly that these muscles are in the forearm and not in the fingers). There are also pictures throughout the book that serve as apt complements to the text. I scanned Piano Power from cover to cover several times and was unable to find the statement, "Every clean downstroke of a finger is preceded by a preparatory upstroke," alluded to by another reviewer. A more observant reader--after carefully reading Theorem I on p.10, and footnote #2 on page 93--would realize that this statement could not possibly come form the author. This book is very detailed and requires slow and repeated readings in order to fully grasp its meaning and content.

This is a great book! I didn't know much about digital crime, just what I'd read about the Love Bug and things like that. But I couldn't put this book down!

It talks about the mind of the computer criminal and why people do things like break into computer systems and cause damage, and it tells you how much damage all this costs. But the best parts of the book are where it describes actual computer crime cases, like the one where the Russian broke into the bank and stole millions of dollars, using computers. It also tells you about cases of identity theft and espionage and computer warfare.

What I also liked is that it gives you lots of sources where you can find out more about computer crime, and it includes the laws that apply to these kinds of crimes. I can't recommend it highly enough.

In the last ten years I was involved in Cyber Crimes Investigations in my country.Part of the years I was responsible of the Cyber Crimes Team in our National Police.Today I teach Computer Law in my Country.In any lecture and presentation I make almost every week,people are asking for a clear book concern Cyber Crimes with data,examples ect.I read most of the books.Only now I can send people to a real book.Not heavy.Useful for judge,Lawyer,Student,Police officer,Security Officer ect.Its the great contribution to the fight against Cyber Crimes.I think this is the book of the year.It has not to be a book for scintist.It has to be for the man on the street and update.Its update.well done.

In the last ten years I was involved in Cyber Crimes Investigations in my country.Part of the years I was responsible of the Cyber Crimes Team in our National Police.Today I teach Computer Law in my Country.In any lecture and presentation I make almost every week,people are asking for a clear book concern Cyber Crimes with data,examples ect.I read most of the books.Only now I can send people to a real book.Not heavy.Useful for Judge,Lawyer,Student,Police officer,Security Officer ect.Its the great contribution to the fight against Cyber Crimes.I think this is the book of the year in Cyber Crimes.It has not to be a book for scientist.It has to be for the man on the street and update.Its update.well done.

Let me preface this by saying that I think Richard Powers is probably the smartest writer working today. I particularly like the breadth of his intelligence. When I read his novels I get the sense that this guy knows a lot of stuff about a lot of things.

Ususally, however, his cleverness is reflected also in the plot and characters of his novels. "The Gold Bug Variations" and "Galatea 2.2" were peopled by brilliant characters who gave voice to Power's intelligence. "Gain" seems to be more of an explication of Powers' understanding of the history of commerce and its influence on modern life and health than anything else.

Not that I didn't enjoy "Gain." In fact, I found Powers' history lesson in the store the Clares quite engaging. And the story of Laura's battle with cancer also had its moments though I didn't really care for her as much as I did the various Clares who claw their way to the top of the business world. Powers may be trying to say something about the evils of the corporation in the modern world but her seems to me to be more attached to the corporation he develops than the character.

Also, I found the switches between the stories every few pages to be a bit jarring; particularly because they are only loosely connected. Toxins produced by the Clare Corporation may (or may not) have caused Laura's cancer but this is not really enough to draw the stories together. Not a single character intersects the two stories, even at the end to draw the stories together. Each story has its own merits but they are really different stories. Worth reading, but probably easier to read separately.

First: a confession. I am writing this review because of another review which refers to Powers as a "cold fish" (as if that's a bad thing!). That said, this is a review and not a discussion forum.

Richard Powers is not the world's most emotional writer, and those reading him and wanting an emotional roller-coaster with beautiful love story and a happy ending had best look elsewhere. I find his books deeply moving on occasion, but the main thrill of reading them is for insight. It's really quite easy to jerk tears, but to shed light on true mysteries is a gift.

There's a passage in "Gain", close to the end, which strikes me as having been written or thought of first. It stabs deeply through the layers of what makes our modern society work and then illuminates what it reveals it suddenly and briefly and then disappears. It begins as a description of the way glossy cardstock is made.

Structurally, this book is very simple. Two stories told in alternating streams in third person past tense. One is of a single divorced mother's struggle to raise a family and deal with cancer. "Terms of Endearment" without the astronaut. The second is the history of a multinational corporation -- it could be any of a dozen household names, and the story is not so different from the official company histories you might read (only far better written than those I have read).

I find the family story very touching and tiny details of it ring true -- the relationships, dialogue, and the flashes of insight into the little things that make life both horrible and wonderful are beautifully and economically rendered.

The story of the company is sometimes dry stuff, but while the family's story (a broken home, not incidentally) is like a slice of life today, the story of the company is a slice through the history of corporate America. The intersection of the two stories is the cancer which devastates the family.

My favorite thing about this book is that it isn't preachy or overtly judgmental. Any conclusions you draw from reading it are your own. This is not a book about the evils of capitalism, or the tragedy of cancer, or how we must return to nature. This is a book that shows us the author's vision of how capitalism works, why it works, and the price we pay for it.

To read Richard Powers is to be crucified by his immense knowledge of any subject he chooses to put forth. His stories drip and ooze pain in all forms, and the sheer amount of grief, loss, and agony his characters go through command your every thought and emotion while you read one of his works. None of his things are easy, either literally or emotionally.
Having said that, I first read 'Gain' at the suggestion of a professor in early August of last year. Little did I know at the time that my mother would be afflicted by ovarian cancer little more than a month after I finished reading it. I immediately delved into it again, knowing that Powers does his research, but the thought that kept coming back to me was that he must have had someone near to him go through this. The novel's too personal, too glib in its inner workings to not have been written by someone with an intimate and painful knowledge of cancer. This novel becomes a primer on how to deal with the death of someone you love by this unthinking disease... and not in a pleasant 'things are alright' way, like Hansen's 'The Chess Garden'... no, Powers holds the reader by the sheer force of his will and the vivid pain that his characters emanate. He says over and over again: 'Look at this. Experience it. Avoid it. Do what you must, because there's no other way.' His descriptions of the breakdown, both emotional and physical, of his victimized family unit and detailed, honest, and can not be denied. This is an excellent novel, full of hatred, spite, and bitterness, but it can be no other way. A compelling read, but not if the subject is too close to you.

While I was reading Galatea, I was entranced. The book tells two stories side by side. In one, the protagonist (not coincidentally also named Richard Powers) is a washed-up author enlisted by a computational neuroscientist to train a artifical neural net to parse, understand, and comment on English literature. The others is Powers' fictionalized autobiography, describing his ultimately failed 10-year relationship with the unnamed woman C.

Both stories are beautiful. They warn you in advance they are going to break your heart, but they proceed to do so with such an honest approach to human inadequacy and regret that although the end is filled with sentiment, it has earned the right to that sentiment. There was not a character in the book I did not love.

In the science fiction storyline, Powers uses a highly novel approach to the genre: actually writing about science and scientists. The story of discovery proceeds incrementally through several tweaks and re-implementations of the developing artificial intelligence. It is one of the few novels I have read that adequately captures the feeling of doing research in a highly speculative field, but does so without becoming tedious. Similarly, the scientists Powers works with have fully developed lives outside their research. One gets the feeling that these are real people that you would like to know yourself, people with lives that the book only scratches the surface of.

The autobiography is also well-conducted, being about himself without being self-indulgent. From the beginning of his relationship with C., Powers simply expresses regret over his inability to be the person C. needed him to be at any given time until the assymetry of their relationship hollows it out and kills it. He often dwells on what he would have liked to have done at each step in its decay, and how far short his actual actions fell of those unvoiced desires. This part of the story is simply an honest look at the fear of living up to one's intentions and regret for having not done so.

After I finished, though, I was unsatisfied. Each part of the book raises difficult, important issues: What does it mean to have consciousness? What is meaning, anyway? What role does literature have in the modern world? How can people let the ones they love know that? To what extent can we really know another human being? Is there hope for human civilization? Yet in each instance, Powers not only shies away from trying to answer, but refrains from even giving hope that an answer might exist. All he can say is that he would like to make some moving, profound statement, but is either powerless to act or inhibited from doing so.

Though a pleasure to read, both for its wit and its heartbreaking honesty, in my final analysis, Galatea disappoints. This book is like a nervous suitor who stands on the doorstep of profundity, poises his knuckles to rap on the door, and then, after several long seconds of silence, walks away without having knocked.

Richard Powers is my favorite contemporary novelist and this book is easily one of his best. For their combination of intelligence and emotional complexity, his books have no rivals. In Galatea 2.2. I was once again immersed in a world rich with ideas and human desire, a world where the emotional rawness of C. and the philosophical curiosity of the neural network Helen illustrate the vast range of our age-old need for understanding. In the end, this novel illuminates not only the power of narrative, but our absolute need for it. It reminds us how greatly we depend on stories to understand the world, and to understand ourselves. The narrator Richard's best shot at explaining the world to Helen is by sharing the story of his own life -- the one true story he really knows. Powers suggests that our most intimate stories are carried through life as beautiful burdens -- narratives with the power to haunt, but ultimately save us. This book, like all of Powers' novels, will move you and inspire you. It's a hard one to shake from your mind.

Without question, Richard Powers is my favorite living author - and reading this intricately crafted, Byzantine book only served to buttress my conviction that Fiction is yet endowed with the capacity to be a vital, compelling art form. Powers has an uncanny ability "to delight and instruct," and in Galatea this is evidenced by his musings on the moebius-twisted attempts of consciousness to unravel its own hidden workings (see pages 28, 218, and 276). He very effectively interweaves his Pygmalion story with a narrative built around an artificial intelligence (I'd wager that he's been greatly influenced by Hofstadter's Godel, Escher, Bach - one of my personal favorites), and, as in Gold Bug Variations, populates his tale with complex, well-educated characters who lead ambiguous, interesting lives. In casting himself as the book's protagonist, Powers alternately comes across as a self-indulgent and a self-effacing writer; however, this works in giving the reader a glimpse into an Aphrodite-molded imagination. I read this novel after I read Gain, his latest, and was more impressed with Galatea's plot and characters. His trademark shimmering wordplay (I find it refreshing that he allows his readers to make their own associations, connections, and conclusions through this device) is in abundance here. All in all, a bracing read!

This could have been a great book except for one thing. Obviously the publishers did not care enough when updating this book to update or even take the time to use quality photo's in their book. I would like to see what is going on in the book but most of the photo's are so awful you can only see shades of grey and black. To let all this effort by Loveless go to waste is a shame!
Save your money and buy an older version, one that hopefully has clear and quality photo's so you will know what R.W.Loveless is building or what step he is using.
The book itself is a great instructional tool. However you just can't get all that Loveless has to offer in this new version because you can not make out many of the photo's.

If you want to make knives with modern tools this is a good book to buy. Alo if you want to smith a blade using old techniques this book has little information to learn how. The chapter on forging gives a vage view on makeing one kind of simple blade ,and even then the author still talks about useing modern equipment. Even in the chapter on makeing knives in a modern shop he only desribes one kind of knife. Which was a single edged simple blade. He never mentioned in the entire book anything about throwing knives or more egzodick knives such as parrying dagger with moving parts. Infact he never mentioned a simple dager or dirk. Even in how vage the book is and leaves you with many questions about many other kinds of knives this would be a good book for someone who wants to make hunting knives or other simple blades.

This book was a big help in giving me ideas getting started in knife making. Book was recomended to me by a Mastersmith out west and it was well worth the money.

If you are interested in how the Nixon and his staff handled the Watergate issue then this is a wonderful look into the private conversations that took place. The author does a good job of setting most of the conversations up with comments as to what the conversation covers. There are also some explanations at the beginnings of the major areas of the book. I would have preferred a little bit more editing out of some of the conversations, but they do serve a point in the overall book.

What struck me the most was just how desperate Nixon kept getting. I almost started to think that maybe he even believed the lies he was telling. It was so fascinating to see how he would formulate a "cover" story and then keep presenting it to staff to see if they would replace their understanding of the events with his. What is sad is the amount of denial that Nixon was sliding into at the end. He was justifying his actions so hard, I started to think that he was trying to change reality with his force of will.

Many of the conversations are very revealing and interesting. I wonder if at times Nixon forgot he was being taped? Why would anyone think that what he was up to would stand the test of time and be thought of as acceptable behavior. You get a good understanding of why Nixon and his family fought so hard to keep the tapes private. In my opinion, these tapes have set back all the work Nixon did after leaving office to rebuild his reputation. My only warring would be that this should not be the first or only book on Watergate that you read. It will help you if have read something else to give you some back ground on the conversations. Overall the book is interesting and a good addition to your Nixon collection.

A fine addition to any Watergate library. Kutler is a dazzling professor who often turns fine logic and thinking to the wrong conclusions. As a litigation historian he can shed copius amounts of illumination onto America's law. However, the fine paths which are followed by Kutler often lead to the wrong conclusion. He has made brilliant arguments for the separation of church and state which in the end only elegantly confirm the opposite conclusion. Our high law not only encourages religous affiliations in civic life, but that government cannot in fact prohibit this free exercise of religion by not only any individual, state, judge or other federal official but by even the federal government itself. It is always a joy to consume a Kutler premise, but even more enjoyable to find the true conclusions.

If you are interested in how Nixon and his staff handled the Watergate issue, then the book Abuse of Power: The New Nixon Tapes by, Stanley Kutler is a great one to read. Kutler does a great job of setting the private conversations up with comments as to what they cover. He also gives some explanations at the beginning of the major areas of the book. I was happy that they did not edit much of the conversations that took place because they serve a good point in the overall book.

What struck me the most about the book was just how desperate Nixon kept getting. I almost started to think that maybe he even believed the lies he was telling. It was so fascinating to see how he would come up with a "cover" story and then keep presenting it to his staff to see if they would replace their understanding of the events with his. What is sad is the amount of denial that Nixon encountered at the end. He was trying so hard to justify his actions; I started to think that he was trying to change reality with his force of will.

Many of the conversations are very revealing and interesting. It makes me wonder, if at times, Nixon forgot he was being taped? I got a good understanding of why Nixon and his family fought so hard to keep the tapes private. In my opinion, these tapes have set back all the work Nixon did after leaving office to rebuild his reputation. It will help you if have read something else to give you some background on the conversations. Hopefully, this will not be the only book on the Watergate scandal that you read. Overall, the book is interesting and well written.