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 strongly recommend this book as well as any other Tom and Scott mystery. Mark Richard Zubro always weaves a web of mystery that will keep you guessing right up until the end. And you would be hard pressed to find a more perfect example of gay heros.

Well, you always knew that when high school teacher, Tom Mason and baseball ace pitcher, Scott Carpenter ever decided to officially tie the knot, you should get ready for the media event of the century. And that's what happens in this the ninth book in the ever-popular Tom and Scott mystery series.

The grandest ballroom in Chicago has been rented for the ceremony with a multi-denominational band of clergymen and women set to officiate and all the family, friends, political and sports elite and a multitude of irate and uninvited protesters in attendance. Unfortunately, one of the unexpected guests is Tom's first gay lover, Ethan Gahain, who says he has to talk with Tom. Their affair had taken place when they were both seventeen, and before Ethan dumped him two years later.

The ceremony itself went without a hitch other than the intended one. But before Tom can talk to Ethan and the planned indoor fireworks can take place, fireworks of another sort go off in the men's room when Ethan is found brutally murdered. As you night expect, Tom is the one to discover the body and in the process he get properly bloodied. Everyone knows Tom couldn't be the murderer, and Ethan's parents ask Tom and Scott to investigate the murder.

Along way Scott's teenaged delinquent nephew gets involved, as well as hidden camera pornography and blackmail. Tangled webs have been woven and Tom and Scott have to unravel them.

Though the series is growing a little old and the book is lacking in the surprises of the earlier episodes, Zubro still has a great way with words and his wit and realistic style get you through the book in a totally interesting manner. But it might be time to put more emphasis on his Paul Turner series, or to explore possibilities of a new series.

One of the features of this book is a trip Tom and Scott make to Saint Louis. I always enjoy rating authors on their ability to plot their action through the local streets and landmarks. Zubro scored a 9.8 with only two minor errors. Hey, that's better than what a local mystery writer scored on his last book.

This book is a story of two brave gay men uniting in love and life. Unfortunately, many people are still intolerant of the rights of others who do not behave as they think people should and will cause trouble for them any way they can.

I love the books that I have read by Mark R. Zubro. Anything he writes is entertaining, interesting, and a GREAT READ!

The standout character of the novel is the new student from Nebraska, Walter Nowland, codenamed "Statis" because of his ability to manipulate ambient static electricity. Walter is the only really three-dimensional character in the book, and he largely saves it from being completely pedestrian. He is also largely figuring out what menace the group faces, and for thwarting it. Walter is a very endearing character with surprising depth and originality, but the regular characters actually suffer by comparison.

Unfortunately, this means that while Generation X isn't a complete waste of paper for fans of the series, it does little to supplement one's understanding of the regular characters. The novel leaves so much potential material untapped. Any one of the kids could easily be the focus of an entire novel. The fact that Generation X barely probed depths beyond what can be found in a regular issue of the comic book series was a disappointment.

The lack of great character insights and exploration is not even offset by a great action-packed plot or compelling villain. The main plot basically has most of the team filled with despair. I actually found this very unusual and interesting. But I'm sure that many readers won't find malaise a sufficiently exciting central theme.

One strong redeeming feature in the novel is Maggin's subtle but well-executed venture into areas of faith. Even when faced with a terminal illness, Walter has an amazingly positive attitude, due in part to guidance from beyond the grave (a ghost named Hiram) as well as faith in an afterlife. Maggin is a practicing Jew and has brought an intelligent, affirmative faith-based perspective to all of his novels, this one included. These elements are not overwhelming in the book, and are handled so generically and thoughtfully that they will not bother non-religious readers. But Maggin's appreciation of spirituality, ethical values, and non-quantifiable truths mark him as a student of such talented and well-rounded writers as C. S. Lewis, G. K. Chesteron, Orson Scott Card, and J. R. R. Tolkien.

Unless you're a diehard fan of Generation X, Scott Lobdell, or Elliot S. Maggin, Generation X is a novel you should probably avoid. Fans of the series will find this prose treatment format interesting, especially as it was co-written by the series creator. Fans of Maggin's novels will find it interesting to see how this work fits in between his earlier Superman novels and his later masterpiece Kingdom Come. Thus, the novel may satisfy certain academic curiosities. But as a source of simple reading enjoyment, this book will only be read enthusiastically by young or fairly inexperienced readers.

I love Generation X, it's one of my favorite X-teams. I enjoy the story and the way it developed but there really was no depth to the story. Usually we get a kind of extra insight or understanding of these characters but I missed this in the book. I understand that you can't get into the mindset of these characters in a short novel but still..... Oer all it's a good plotline story if not character development-wise.

I thought this book was one of the best books I have ever read. A perfectly drawn Gen X reality. It reflects the comic book perfectly.

I agree with many of the reviewers below that this book was helpful and often interesting. It gives a readable orientation to one of the most important movements in the software industry today, and the editors have been fortunate to gather together so many contributors who obviously know whereof they speak. In particular, the editors' Introduction, Eric Raymond's "Brief History of Hackerdom," Richard Stallman's account of GNU and FSF, Bruce Perens's discussion of Open Source, and Tim O'Reilly's essay on "Infoware" were informative and thought-provoking.

That said, it should be noted that the Amazon reviewer above gets it wrong when she writes that the book gives a "fascinating look at the raging debate." In fact, *nothing* about Open Source is debated in this book, which is a major disappointment. As the reviewer from Princeton below notes, the goodness of everything Open Source and the badness of everything Microsoft seems to be a given for many of the writers. At the risk of criticizing the book for not being something its creators didn't intend, I think it would be greatly improved with the addition of a wider range of viewpoints and even a dissenting voice or two. (There are a number of essays that could give place to some alternate content: Eric Raymond's second essay, "The Revenge of the Hackers," leans heavily toward the self-congratulatory, as does the Netscape cheerleaders' "Story of Mozilla." And Larry Wall's "Diligence, Patience, and Humility" seems to have been included not on its own merits but on the author's reputation as the Perl Deity.)

A final wish is for the book to address a broader range of readers. As a longtime computer user but a relatively new programmer, with no formal business training, I found many of the essays to rely heavily on the jargon of hackers and MBAs. More editorial control here, in addition to a broader range of content, would make this book seem less like preaching to the choir and more effective at spreading the Open Source gospel.

This is a good idea on O'Reilly's part to try to document the history and goals of the Open Source movement, which had roots in several college campuses and research labs in the '70s and '80s, and became news in the late '90s with the popularity of Linux, Apache, and the decision of Netscape to open its browser source. The best introductory piece, however, is probably Eric Raymond's "Cathedral and the Bazaar" which is not in this book(O'Reilly publishes it separately, but it's available free on the Web and short enough to be read in one sitting). As for this collection, I liked Robert Young's business case for distributing open source - his story of how Red Hat was launched reminds me of the Compaq tale of "three guys in a restaurant". The Apache article is also quite good, and Linus Torvalds offers a brief but interesting (and characteristically opinionated) article about how Linux evolved technically. There's also a good article discussing the various open source licenses (BSD, GPL, Netscape, etc) and what they do and don't restrict.

Others I was less impressed with. Stallman's article is predictable and self-serving. He explains how he evolved his software-as-gift philosophy but doesn't come close to terms with how the software industry can support substantial employment if all source is given away. There's yet another history of the different branches of BSD Unix. There's a breathtaking inside account of the launch of Mozilla which ends with the fancy Silicon Valley party when development has finally gotten underway. The low point is Larry Wall's "essay", which is a frankly ridiculous waste of time and print.

Although this is a mixed bag, there's enough reference material and interesting points of view to keep the book around.

Open Sources is a collection of essays by people who have been involved in a prominent way in what is being called "the open source revolution." The authors are all very bright people with good intentions and diverse viewpoints; this makes for interesting reading. However, I had a problem with the introduction. In fact, I hated it. It attempts to couch the issue of free vs. non-free software in religious terms: in the bad old days, free software only came from universities or other government-funded research. Then, a few companies saw the light and began to open-source their software; currently the industry is divided between these companies (the saved) and the rest of the companies (the damned) who will spiral into oblivion due to their proprietary selfishness. I thought the presence of this sort of rhetoric in the introduction, which sets the tone for the rest of the book, was particularly unfortunate.

The essays in Open Sources are a mixed bag. Kirk McKusick's history of Berkeley UNIX is great, as is Michael Tiemann's history of Cygnus Solutions, RMS's article about the GNU project, and Bruce Perens' article about licensing issues. Also, I really enjoyed the transcript of the infamous 1992 flame war between Linus and Andy Tanenbaum about the merits of Linux vs. Minix. On the other hand, Paul Vixie's article about software engineering is pretty random, Larry Wall's article does not seem to have a point at all, and Eric Raymond's

second article and Tom Paquin's account of the open-sourcing of Netscape are too self-serving to be useful.

Overall, I enjoyed this book quite a bit. However, the year that has passed since its publication has exposed some of the more outlandish predictions made by its contributors (Eric Raymond said that Windows 2000 would either be canceled or be a complete disaster). My guess is that Open Sources is not destined to become a classic. Rather, in a few years it will be viewed as an interesting but somewhat naive period piece.

I knew this was a kids' book, but it seemed to be the most interesting and recent biography of Tom Cruise, based on the reviews that I looked at on this website. I am a very big Tom Cruise fan, so I decided to take the risk.

I was a bit shocked to find out that the customer review on this website that claimed that Cruise had made punnish errors in reading movie titles seems to have been entirely fabricated. I don't understand why something like that isn't removed from the site.

The book was ok. I learned some things about Cruise's career. There were some nice photos. Still, it wasn't an adult book. I would have liked something more meaty and in depth. I guess that would be hard to write, since he's not a person who likes to reveal intimate details about himself. I suppose eventually some person in his entourage will start talking and we'll actually find out something about him. We'll just have to be patient.

This would be a good book to give to a child who is dyslexic and feeling discouraged about learning to read, though.

This cute little book gives insight into Tom's career from the beginning through his role in "Jerry Maguire". It covers his early interest in acting, as well as his struggle with dyslexia (which seems to be mentioned on almost every page). I gained a deeper respect for Cruise after reading about his trials dealing with the handicap and his non-compromising dedication to perfecting his job as actor, producer, director. This is definitely an enjoyable book!

The public only see the glamour - but Phelan Powell shows the significant obstacles Tom Cruise has overcome in order to live his life of pampered opulence. In Cruise's case dyslexia was the obstacle - it nearly cost him the part of the barman in "Cocktail" (he thought it was a film about cockatiels and told his agent he "didn't do parrots") and he bought his own wildebeeste to research the part of Lt Maverick Mitchell in "Top Gnu".

Being an avid reader and also a semi-professional musician, I was drawn to this book by the Mahler aspect. However, after reading it, I was fascinated by the more pressing matter of the role of the Nazis concerning stolen art, valuables, and basically, life, possessed by the Jews before and during WWII.

The book ,in a nutshell, deals with a missing and invaluable Mahler manuscript from Guido Adler's library. Mr. Adler was Jewish and a famous musicologist. The assumption is that the manuscript was taken by a Nazi attorney during an inventory of Mr. Adler's possessions. The Mahler turns up at a Sotheby's auction, presented by the son of the Nazi attorney. The bulk of the story is about Mr. Adler's daughter and her fight to retain the right to keep possession of the manuscript, among other valuable items inherited to her.

I recently have had the privledge to have met and attended a lecture by Anika Scott. Much research has gone into this book to present it into a flowing, absorbing story. She basically started from a handful of letters from the early 1900's written in German.

It is a quick read, very interesting and I highly recommend it!

It is utterly overwhelming to think of the immense amount of research & many years that it took to compile this book! Yet, though stuffed full with historical information, I was drawn into the "romance" of the book as well. It seems that the author draws from so many resources as to the personalities & characters of his ancestors that I am compelled to feel as if I had made their acquaintance at some time! Additionally, I could hear & smell the environment that this all occurred in. It certainly made this writing come more alive & vibrant by drawing out the essence of that era!

There is also a very strong sense of the personal drive of the author. Not an obsession but certainly strong will to unveil the truth and to reveal that truth to the world. There seems to be a blatant & unfounded denial of these truths by the parties that currently possess Guido Adler's personal treasures.

Upon finishing the book, I felt a sense of being incomplete... I felt a need for closure for the author. I certainly hope that eventually he will find that closure for himself & his ancestors... that what was lost will be found only to enrich the world once again.

Howard Mackie, Tom DeFalco, Todd Dezago and JM DeMatteis finally bring the clone saga to a close with "Revelations". Heartbreak, action, adventure, and the return of a Spider-foe long thought dead all leads to an explosive climax, and when the smoke clears. Only one Spider-Man will walk away from it alive. Read and find out who it is.

This book was wonderful to read. It finally ends the long and drug on clone saga between Ben Reilly and Peter Parker and once and for all the real Spider-man is decided. It's build up is amazing.

I consumed this mystery in very short time. Like all good mysteries, the murder is revealed in the first chapter (in this book on page 4!). The past is fast and furious, leading the reader through a maze of character relationships held together with drug dealing, jealousies and suspicions, and of course murder. This was the third Zubro book I've read (Political Poison, and Another Dead Teenager being the other two) and it has renewed my faith in the author as a competent crafter of murder mysteries. Characterization remains a weakness for Zubro, however. His characters at times are difficult to differentiate: primarily they speak the same. He shrewdly and effectively uses how they dress and what their home environments look like to establish their character, as well as creates interesting set pieces for them to move and act within, but as soon as they open their mouths, they sound like everyone else.

But his strength remains crafting plausible plot lines that hold you and tease you enough to wonder if you really know who did it. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and will continue to acquire and read his others.

Like potato chips, the Tom and Scott mysteries are easy to consume and (as brain food goes) nutritionally valueless. I WANT to like these books. I keep hoping...

The problem with Tom and Scott is that I can't tell Tom from Scott. Oh, I know one of them (narrator Tom) is a Viet Nam vet who now teaches highschool, and one of them (guess who) is a highly paid professional athlete. Scott is Southern-born, starts out a little closeted (a potentially interesting conflict never explored), and Tom is...not. Unlike in Joseph Hansen's Brandstetter series, or Richard Stevenson's Strachey novels, I'm never lured into believing Tom and Scott are real people. They are a gay fantasy--not even an interesting gay fantasy. They are too perfect, too plastic. Barbie's Ken without Barbie.

Another thing. No sense of humor. Scott and Tom have the most painful repartee I've heard outside of a kung fu movie.

But as serious a handicap as having cartoons for lead characters is, Zubro does have his strengths. He concocts a crafty, clever mystery here about murder and drug rings in highschool, and he paints a realistic picture of highschool (minus the drugs and murder), as well as unflattering portraits of administrators, fellow teachers and students.

It wouldn't take a lot to turn this series into something delicious and satisfying. Until then I'll keep munching away, knowing I should be doing something better with my brain.

Have adventure programmes eliminated too much risk? Do one-day adventure programmes provide long lasting learning? Should gender-specific programmes, such as all Women courses, be offered? Should we use urban settings to promote adventure learning? Do we tell others about our magical camping spots? Should communications technology be used in the backcountry?

These questions and more are addressed in this thought provoking text, and about time! For those interested in grappling with these sometimes-controversial questions, this book is for you. There are fifteen chapters that passionately argue both sides of each coin. It is a book especially relevant to outdoor education teachers, practicing adventure educators and instructors (and those in training), and for post-graduate students. Whilst it is a North American resource, all of the chapters are relevant to the Aoteoroa / New Zealand context. I foresee this text providing the fuel for many wonderful fireside debates in the years ahead.

Being an introduction to so many branches of mathematics and still self contained in the development of a specific theory, I think this book is a must for anyone who wants to get at least a glimpse of what lies beyond the curtains of real mathematics. I studied the book as an undergraduate, and the subject was hard to me, which made it all the more fun. I have pursued my graduate work in physics and although not directly helpful yet, the introduction to commutative diagrams, homological algebra, the abstract approach to products and coproducts and many other advanced subjects of mathematics has really been a wonderful intellectual challenge.