This is a wonderful little retrospective, with some very creative and funny observations. If you are anywhere between 25 and 45, the memories will come flooding back (and if you're like me, some embarrassment, too). It is also peppered with some great cartoon illustrations, a seventies quiz ("The 70's SATs") and a music anthology. Well worth it!

This book really had my friends and me rolling on the floor with laughter! What a great collection of memories of this stupid decade-- the people, the fads, the TV shows and music. It's great for parties or just to have lying on your coffee table-- but watch out, your friends will try to steal it (unless they're really groovy). Highly recommended!!!

Here is the best tip that I can give anyone for fly fishing Arizona, ready? Buy it! Try buying it right here you won't find it in the shops yet. Get your credit card out, and type me a message right now telling me "thank you" so you don't have to hold yourself up e-mailing adam while you are getting ready to explore all the wonderful opportunities that are exposed in this book. I am absolutely impressed! In 1999, no less than three books on Arizona Fly Fishing have been released for the public. This book is a MUST HAVE for any fly fisher in the state of Arizona. If you have to buy one book, this is it. It is my favorite, did I say that? For those of you visiting the state, this resource is definitely one that puts you in touch with more information than most of the locals. Mr Johnson is obviously a very keen Arizona explorer with a fly rod. In a nutshell, you will not find any careless meanderings, no miss marked maps, just a Christopher Columbus of fly fishing here in our state. Gee's this guy has been around. The answers are there for questions that are very close to my heart. I will not go into detail about this book other than I TOLD YOU SO! Do you want Arizona Trout???

Most movie reviewers are biting critics, Jay Scott is no exception. If he doesn't like something he isn't going to beat around the bush about it. The way he does it though, and the reasons he gives for both liking and disliking movies are original and fresh. What separates him from other reviewers are that his critiques are full of insight. Not only in what the movie attempts to portray but how it parallels to what is happening in the world. He considers everything from the director's past projects to where they stand on any number of issues. Scott succesfully melds together the insight of a psychiatrist, the power of words of any great poet and the wit of a stand up comic. For anyone looking for a fresh look on a movie they've seen or a place to start rather than roaming aimlessly through the video store aisles. 'Great Scott!' is the book for you.

Jay Scott's excellent book gives a comprehensive run down of almost the entire Gretsch lineage. Packed with detailed model descriptions, great pictures and a healthy dose of humorous wit, this book is a must read for anyone interested in Gretsch guitars. The book is let down however, by frequent typographical and grammatical errors throughout. Some pictures are also unnecessarily reproduced throughout the book. If edited more fastidiously, this book would be almost perfect.

Jay Scott has undoubtedly devoted his soul to the guitars of the Fred Gretsch Company. In his outstanding book, The Guitars of the Fred Gretsch Company, Jay concentrates on the fine appointments and unique styling of each Gretsch Model. He tends to focus on the halcion years of 1950 to the late sixties offering indepth studies of the famous models, namely the 6120 (of which I am a proud owner), the Country Gent, White Falcon, the Jet series and other rarities such as the White Penguin.

There are few books devoted solely to the Gretsch Guitar and, in my opinion, Scott's book is the most comprehensive. The pages contain many photographs and extarcts from original catologues. Also included are some interesting "custom" models (no doubt from Randy Bachman's collection) and hybrids made by Gretsch in their effort to use surplus parts. Scott also writes about the management of the company and the various owners and finally, the demise. It is encouraging that the company has found it's feet agian and is producing fine instruments in the same vein as the originals.

To conclude, any Gretsch fan should aquire this reference to further their knowlege and for pure browsing pleasure. I find myself flipping through the pages regularly gazing at those perferct arch top guitars with their flawless character. This book is a fantastic manual on the epitome of sound and luxuriant quality - The Gretsch Guitar.

This book is an enjoyable, informative look into a classic, American Guitar company, Gretsch. Its picure gallery alone will keep you reaching for it again and again. Jay's passion with Gretsch guitars shows. Of particular interest is the section on the Duo Jet, and its sister, the Silver Jet. The only book like it on the market today. Five stars.

In Legacy: The Last Will and Testament of Hal Jordan, writer Joe Kelly and Artists Brent Anderson and Bill Sienkiewicz try to add a fitting coda to the career of Hal Jordan, the disgraced (and deceased) former Green Lantern. Prior to his death, Jordan went berserk with grief (The City he called home was destroyed by an insane alien baddie), slaughtered the entire Green Lantern Corps., and usurped their power in an attempt to undo the destruction of Coast City. He was eventually given a chance to redeem himself; He died saving the Earth, and has since been reborn as the newest incarnation of the wrath of God known as The Spectre. Whew!

The book centers around former Jordan sidekick/Green Lantern wannabe/offensive racial stereotype Tom "Pieface" Kalmaku. (Can you believe there was actually a time when it was OK to call an Eskimo "Pieface"? Jeez!) He is wallowing in self-pity over the loss of his friend Hal; He's a destitute alcoholic, he's just lost his job, his Wife, his Kids......and now, out of nowhere, he's handed a child that is allegedly Jordan's, and a note from Hal reading "Tom- Fix it. Hal" Who is this kid? What does the note mean? What can one man do in a world of super-powered God-like beings? Tom is about to find out....

The art is nice, the book is attractively designed, and the reappearance of my favorite ever Green Lantern (I won't spoil the surprise, poozer!) is much appreciated and very unexpected. Writer Joe Kelly even manages to end the book on a note of triumph, with a hint of a bright future for The Corps. My only problem is that if I weren't aware of the twisty Green Lantern continuity, I'd have been lost. The book just doesn't seem new-reader friendly. Who is The Spectre, and what does he have to do with Hal Jordan? Who is the big yellow guy that blew up Coast City? What did Hal hope to accomplish by killing off The Corps. and The Guardians? I knew the answers to these quetions, but a new reader wouldn't.

Longtime fans should be satisfied, though.

Really. From what I've seen, most Hal fans will praise this book bar none as the best Gl story while Kyle Rayner fans will berate it as a poor story. And yes, I can see from both sides of the camp, but I think Kyle fans tended to look at the story superficially. Plus, it had elements that they did not like such as the Silver Age Green Lantern mythos. So, if you're a fan of Kyle as the one and only Green Lantern, you probably won't like this book. But if you're a fan of the Corps and Hal, you'll definitely love this book. It's got great art and a deep story which I found most Kyle fans never understood as they were too occupied with simple detail errors. Funny, when you consider, Kyle Rayner stories were full of such inconsistencies and yet his stories were praised. It's priced a bit so you could wait for the tpb if you want. But it's really a good story for the classic silverage Green Lantern fan that I wouldn't wait. The story is centered around Tom Kalmaku, Hal's old time friend and mechanic, so you're not getting a 100% Hal Jordan book. You're getting more of Tom's life being affected by Hal's actions during and after Emerald Twilight.

A nice collection of artists, with some great examples of what they can do. But....
Paper stock is poor and some prints are a bit blurry.

This is a great artbook, featuring many famous furry artists. I love the art, and look at it regularly. If you're a fan of Michele Light, I recommend it.

This book started my physical collection of furry publishings, and still remains the best singal pice I have. Not only is it perfectaly published, but contains excellent examples of anthropomorphic artwork. Its my personal bible.

The Beautiful and Damned is a Naturalist novel that recounts the slow dissolution of Anthony Patch, heir to a large fortune, and his charmingly immature, hedonistic, and impulsive wife Gloria.

There's something a little "off" in this novel--even saying the title out loud requires an odd caesura. The plot has a feeling of artificial inevitability. Early on, it's easy to sympathize with Patch, even to root for him, but at times his thought processes and actions are so maudlin that one wants him to just *fall* already. Gloria is a fine and interesting character, but by and large the peripheral characters are closer to caricatures.

The book's strength is its prose, natural and authoritative, never self-consciously clever to an annoying extent. Fitzgerald's pacing is steady; occasional meandering narrative passages are fished quickly out of the water with dialog and plot events.

All in all it's a fairly good book, worth a read if you're NOT looking for the near-great Gatsby.

I enjoyed this book immensely and wished it was required reading in high school. What originally attracted me to want to read this book was Fitzgerald's reputation as a talented author who wrote "The Great Gatsby." I didn't want to start of with his most recognizable title, because in my mind that may set the bar too high by the sensitive hype placed on the book. (Don't ask me to explain that last sentence if you don't understand it. I simply mean reading Gatsby first could place a judgement barrier for me on his other books.)

The book was very well written, interesting, and very entertaining. It's difficult for me to read a large portion classic novels because of the older syntax, grammer, and slang used to write them, but with this book I could easily understand it and get involved with what's going on. As much as it can be said to be a love story it also, to me, is a life story. It's Anthony's life experience of finding love, not simply falling in love. I enjoyed this book very much, but must give it a 4/5 star rating. (You know the old grading technique - never give a perfect grade unless you know for sure it takes the cake and nothing can top it!)

By no means his best novel (as others here suggest) but highly underrated. Often one hears of Great Gatsby as his best, Tender is the Night as his labored over lost classic, This Side of Paradise as his promising and famous debut, and The Love of the Last Tycoon as the classic that never was, but Beautiful and Damned is never mentioned. In my opinion this is the book that best describes the hedonistic society I have read of called the Roaring Twenties. As the reader watches all the characters lose their dreams and fall into a depraved, hollow existent based on alcohol I am reminded too fondly of my college years.

If you are a Fitzgerald fan read this one after This Side of Paradise. If you are someone with a passing interest in the Twenties read this. If you are someone with just a passing interest in Fitzgerald then read this one last, after any of the other Fitzgerald novels.

Many may argue that the title of this review is nonsensical-I agree. It was a ruse. I found this book to be, most simply, erudite. This is a wonderful case where the book is merely a vehicle of message. I was not particularly attached to any of the characters and I was not meant to be attached. No character is ever truly developed and they, in effect, act as mirrors of the personality of Amory Blaine. Its just him from different directions. Even with them surrounding him-hes still not quite lovable as a character(However, I thought the concept of Amory was great).Noting this, I found the book insightful. Fitzgerald certainly had alot to say about the generation in question. He emphasized their feelings of disenchantment and emphasized this by the seemingly stale characters of the novel. He may have coined one of the best phrases that I have seen in such a novel-"I know myself, but that is all I know". Its a line I'll have to remember. Its a good read, sophisticated, and worth it for it's ambitions.

I love this book so much, it kills me. I love Amory Blaine, with all his flaws and imperfections, that it seems I'll never find a man in the world, because this creation, of this man, was somehow a fiat from God. Usually after reading something that means very much to me, I get this strange sad feeling - After reading some of Hemingway, I thought he was such an adorable man, and wished he were alive... talk to him, anything, to appropriate some of that passion and that gift and that wonder for myself. I get the same feeling with T.S. Eliot... But Amory Blaine? Shoot! Can you fall in love with a literary character?

With Fitzgerald, it seems you can. I'd rather sleep with who he creates than he himself. This was the first Fitzgerald I've ever read - then I read all the rest of his novels. Several times each. Because I want to be a writer, and am somewhat of a writer I guess, I can't say this is my favorite Fitzgerald novel AS A WRITER. But as a PERSON, a young person, perhaps it is. Or it's very close.

This Side of Paradise is beautiful, ugly, brave, cowardly, immaculate, flawed. It's paradise lost and paradise regained and paradise in purgatory. It's everything life and man should or shouldn't be, all at once. I can perfectly understand why someone wouldn't like this novel, wouldn't understand, wouldn't appreciate. But I also understand that if all the world were Amory-ish or Amory-leaning, Amory-sympathetic, Amory-lovers, or even Amory-haters - somehow the world would just collapse and be ruined. And I think this is also a bit of what Fitzgerald was trying to impart, so it is as it should be.

This Side of Paradise is a truly classic work. Be warned though, having read The Great Gatsby as well, these are different books. Not better or worse, just different. As a member of the incoming Freshman class at Princeton, I read the book before starting. I will easily admit to not liking the first half of the book. However, the 2nd half is an, albeit depressing (until the last few pages), wonderfully written work about the lost soul of the youth (grr. . .I'm 18 and using the word youth) of the 1920s. The last 10 pages are offer an unparalleled view into the soul of a truly remarkable character. I didn't personally like Amory (for a variety of reasons), ie, I wouldn't want him to be my best friend, but he was an amazing character study (pardon the term). Learning about him through Fitzgerald was a fabulous experience. This book is definitely worth reading.

I've always believed in the maxim that the best books on animation are written by animation fans--and this book proves my point. Longtime Rocky and Bullwinkle fan Keith Scott takes us on a long-overdue historical tour of the studio run by one J. Troplong Ward.

Ward, a former real estate salesman, started with a vague desire to "get into television" during the medium's infancy in the late forties. Through his lifelong friendship with animator Alex Anderson, he drifted into the pioneering field of made-for-TV animation. Anderson, nephew of Terrytoons founder Paul Terry, had been knocking around a "comic strip for television" for some time with no takers. Once teamed with Ward and armed with a wicked sense of humor, he introduced the world to Crusader Rabbit, TV's first animated star.

Scott (no relation to Bill Scott, legendary voice of our favorite moose) has penned a winning addition to the ever-growing number of behind-the-scenes books on animation. It is far more detailed than another recent history of the Jay Ward studio (the name of which escapes me). Too detailed, perhaps--the long, convoluted legal battles Ward fought with the "Crusader Rabbit" distributors (and those of "Bullwinkle" and other Ward creations) are spelled out in excruciating detail, and can get more than a little boring.

The book, however, does give us a glimpse inside the wackiest animation studio since Termite Terrace. The only studio (in the words of head ringmaster Ward) approved by the Food and Drug Administration. This, by the way, turns out to be no joke: Ward had popcorn, peanut, and cotton candy vendors stationed in the lobby. Ward himself occasionally could be seen decked out in a ridiculous uniform that made him bear more than a passing resemblance to Cap'n Crunch. That may well have been the inspiration for the character, as Ward's studio produced those commercials until 1984.

Scott recounts for us the sometimes silly, often hilarious promotions (Ward parading with girls in mock Salvation Army uniforms, exhorting "sinners" to "watch the Bullwinkle Show," for one). And, of course, the infamous "Statehood for Moosylvania" campaign which, in a classic example of lousy timing, Ward brought to the doorstep of the White House at the height of the Cuban missle crisis. See Ward go apoplectic in the face of too-tight budgets and incompetant Mexican animators. See Ward battle idiot censors and executives (when one such network "suit" objected to a scene with Rocky and Bullwinkle in a cannibal's pot, screaming "You can't show cannibalism!" the response was typical Ward. "Is it really cannibalism," he asked, "to eat a moose and a squirrel?")

The book also tells us of lesser-known projects, such as "Fractured Flickers" and "Hoppity Hooper", as well as those that didn't quite make it (one abortive project, a puppet show called "Watts Gnu" seemed quite promising). We also get a rare glimpse of Jay Ward behind the public facade--the nervous, insecure, giggling, shy individual racked with chronic pain from a near fatal injury. It makes the brilliant legacy he left all the more remarkable.

I am probably one of the top 25 Jay Ward officiannados in the world -- And it's a fact I'm really proud of-- The man was an absoloute genius storyteller and cartoonist, who created the first made for TV cartoon series--(now they all are!) Crusader Rabbit was emersed in red tape though right from the beginning--- But Jay prevailed--his next endeavors became even bigger and even more embedded in the nation's psyche---Rocky and Bullwinkle, George of the Jungle, Cap'n Crunch, Quisp, Quake--- the list goes on--- Keith Scott's book is truly a BIBLE for Ward-ites like myself-- He knew Bill Scott and Jay Ward , as a teen he flew himself to America--from his native Australia - because of his love for their incredible cartooning style and productions! This book has it all! Keith is also the official voice of Bullwinkle now-- portraying him in cartoon form in the new movie---even!Who better to write this gem?--- probably no one. The pages are filled with pictures and material that will appeal to EVERYONE.Remember the Kerwood Derby? and "you knew the job was dangerous when you took it Fred" and "A cereal so good they named it after me"-- it all came from the moose --er house (of ideas)that Jay built.---I cannot tell you enough---BUY THIS BOOK!--It is the best book on the subject--EVER!--Thanks Keith Scott!But most of all--- THANKS JAY WARD AND BILL SCOTT!--GO AHEAD< PULL A RABBIT OUT OF THE HAT!--- review by Bill Field

This is the best reference to "Rocky and Bullwinkle" out there. In it is information about the show itself, Jay Ward (the show's creator), Bill Scott (coproducer and voice of Bullwinkle), and info on the other voice actors (Paul "Boris Badenov" Frees, June "Rocky" Foray, Daws Butler ("Fractured Fairy Tales"), Hans "Snidely Whiplash" Conried, and others). Throughout the book, you see information about Jay Ward's pre "Bullwinkle" show, "Crusader Rabbit", along with "Fractured Fairytales," "Dudley Do-Right," "Peabody and Sherman," "George of the Jungle," "Super Chicken," "Tom Slick," and a variety of other Ward productions such as "Hoppity Hooper" and "Fractured Flickers."

This is the best reference guide to Jay Ward and "Rocky and Bullwinkle," and it includes a full list of episodes of all of Jay Ward's cartoons, which includes voice credits (as you know, Bill Scott, June Foray, Paul Frees, and Daws Butler did many a character on the Ward cartoons).

This is really a good book for Java Developers who wish to develop XML based applications. Couple of chapters have good examples and explains concepts in a very clear format. Also the book is upto date with all the latest concepts in XML world.

I have been working with XML for a while now, and this book offered a great coverage of most aspects of what XML application developers need to know. I am not able to keep up with everything happening in this very broad part of the industry - and this book provided enough coverage of the areas I'm not able to focus on on a regular basis to help me stay current. I'd recommend it for anyone who's working with specific areas within XML and want to stay current with the broader scope of what is going on. I'd also recommend it for anyone who is new to XML and wants to know the various Java APIs out there.

This is surely one of the Best Books availale in Market for Java Developers. I have been waiting to read a Book which covers all the latest XML API and how use them using latest Java Tools. Thanks to Wrox Publications for bringing this book to us. It covers how to do XML programming using all the latest Java API line I/O Sockets, Developing Presentation Logic, Developing Configuration and Deployment logic, Using XML in B2B applications. In short no other book in Market provides such a clear understanding of how to develop Java Based XML Applications.

Also it clearly explains how to use the latest Java Based XML Parsers like Xerces, Xalan and more. Friends if you need to get upto date with all the latest Java Based Parsers and different XML API, then this Book is really the Best one.