Simply the greatest Spanish film director since Luis Bunuel, Pedro Almodovar reigns as one of the best filmmakers in the world. Somewhat a cross between John Waters and Gus Van Sant, Pedro's films have won acclaim throughout the world, especially at major film festivals such as Cannes and Venice.

"Desire Unlimited" by Paul Julian Smith covers all of Almodovar's films from his first major film "Pepi, Luci, Bom, y Otras Chicas del Monton" to his Academy-Award winning film, "Todo Sobre Mi Madre." Summarizing each film in its' own chapter, Smith gives the reader a summary of the plot and commentary on the film's characters, storyline, and locations to further educate readers more about Almodovar's methods. Smith does a great job in discussing each film, especially due to his citations of commentary and critiques from various periodicals throughout the world.

Beautifully designed, this book is not only a treat to Almodovar fans worldwide, but also it is a must have for any serious film student/buff who wants to know the forces of creativity from a non-American director. While American directors are often subjected to edits and story rewrites due to big studio contracts and concerns, Almodovar and his film company, El Deseo, do not have to answer to anyone, giving him total control over his films.

Truly a genius, Almodovar gets the respect he deserves in this book. I highly recommend this book to all who love Almodovar's unique, campy style. It makes great reading any day of the year.

There are lots of books on Almodovar and most of them are either very superficial or too darned academic. This one hits the spot very nicely. It's a chatty, engaged and thoroughly researched book, packed with information and challenging analysis. Sometimes it's a bit obscure but mostly it's the book Almodovar's films deserve. Highly recommended.

I really enjoyed reading this book. It was used for a sociology class taken at BYU. Going into the course I thought it was going to be extremely boring but I found myself reading it as if it were a novel! This book is very thought provoking and knee jerking, forcing you to take a look at your views and perceptions and how they got to be that way. I would recommend this book to all because it can only help you to be a better person. I wish this were a requirement for high school students, it would definately help them to understand our world and how they fit into it!!!

James Henslin's Social Problems is an excellent textbook for students who want to learn more about social problems in the U.S. Henslin divided his book into three parts. First, an overview of the problem. Henslin used the three major sociological theories: symbolic interactionism, functionalism, and conflict theory to interpret the significance of the problem. He used all of the theories without any biases favoring one theory over another. Second,he summarized what social researchers have found about the problem. Finally, he outline possible social policy for it, including making his own recommendation about how to solve it. Those who are tired of reading other social problems book who found that the book' content are depressing and the authors are pessimistic about the problem he/she cover should read Henslin's book. His coverage of the problems, from crime to America's health crisis, from racism to income inequality, from population explotion to war, are excellent and his recommendations on how to solve this problems makes sense and largely optimistic. My professor used Henslin's text for his social problems class and I think his choice is an excelent choice. I highly recommend this book for students and professors who want to learn and explore the social problems in our society

This book attracted me at first only out of virtue of its title; I thought, "How many gay quotes can there BE?" Upon reading it, it turned out to be much more than a simple gay book, and is full of insights into person, health, truth, and love, along with the interestingly raunchy sayings and bizarre lines from obscure places. I recommend this.

Jeff Brauer, et al, have given us an insight into the real guts of El Salvador. The detail regarding real people - artisans, shopkeepers, workers and characters - is just what one needs to have a truly great adventure in El Salvador. We were in El Salvador in 1993, travelling on our own. We had some great adventures - but this book would have been an ideal travel companion.

The trouble with Bridge is that it's a complicated game. Unless Bridge is your number one priority in life, you keep forgetting little things that seemed sensible when you read about them two years ago but which have remained unused in your finite memory. Which is good news for authors, because it means there's always a market, even if they're recycling ideas which they only wrote about two years ago.

Bidding books tend to be a waste of effort, unless both you and your partner agree to read the same book. If you learn a new convention and your partner doesn't, it can only do damage to your partnership and scores. Stick to a simple system: Acol or Five-Card Majors. There is no absolute best bidding system. The best bidding system for you is the one that both you and your partner understand.

But bridge play is a different matter. Apart from the matter of who can see each hand, the game is identical to whist, a far older game. In most situations, experts can work out the best play at the table. Guidelines such as '3rd hand plays high' and '2nd hand plays low' still apply in many situations.

This book clearly lays out these guidelines, and gives examples of where they apply and where they don't. The good news is that there aren't too many of these guidelines. But it's left to the reader to understand the specific hand layouts and draw conclusions about the general applicability of the advice.

Like bidding, defence is a partnership activity. This is a great book, and I'll be trying to persuade my partner to read it.

This is the best and only book about Vietnam War movies written while the war was still going on (i.e., before Apocalypse Now, Rambo II, etc.) As such, it is a unique view of how we Americans actually saw the war at the time, without the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. More importantly, this book is a lot of fun to read, thanks to the author's unique sense of humor.

This is one of the most interesting books I have read in a long time. The main chapters cover C. S. Lewis, R. G. Collingwood, J. R. R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, and J. A. Smith, the teacher of the first two. All of these men were influential, interesting, and taught at Oxford. They were prolific writers and held similar philosophies. The style of James Patrick is worthy of the subject. You will find it well-written, superbly researched, and fun to read. There are in addition a number of nice photographs of the men who appear in the book.

Take a trip into the mind of the man, his words and his thoughts, in this little book you will find an impressive repertoire of the best diplomatic Insults in a way that only Fidel can, But you will also find jokes about him and his revolution, this is a fun little book that takes no prisoners, buy it you will love it.

I found this book quite helpful. I'm a native from El Salvador who had been out of the country for 20 years. I found it a good supplement to other sources of information (e.g., local phone books in El Salvador, people and friends). Although some of the directory information may be dated, most of the facts and directions still hold. It's best to cross-reference the book with a local phone book for more accuracy. Yet, the book is a great trip planning tool. It allows you to pick and chose places and things to do at a pace that not even locals can keep up. It's clear that a lot of good work went into making the book. The level of detail is beyond what any local can know all by himself (e.g., bus routes, mores, festivals, local rituals, etc.). I found the hand-drawn maps most helpful and the history/background informaiton information least helpful. Advisories should apply to all locations outside the central city or popular foreign tourist attractions. Also, the book does not address which locations are most ideal to visit depending on the small universe weather conditions, e.g., heavy rains or dry, hot to extremely hot temperatures. I recommend this book. I've found no other books as helpful as this one but feel that the book and its contents could be much improved, e.g., day-trips, sports events, local festivity schedules, shopping information, entertainment options, ground and non-ground recreational activities, specific coverage and related-activities regarding aviation, boatin, sailing, surfing, fishing, golf, lakes, rivers and bodies of water, etc. (perhaps on future editions, beyond the 2nd). I currently own both of the first two editions. They're both pretty much worn out and it's because they go with me and take me places each time I visit there. I just wish the book were more expansive and provide material for all the other sites that one encounters while going from place to place, yet this would make it too thick and heavy. Also, if you ever go to El Teleferico, please say Hi to Mr. Moon (a local cartoonist) there for me!

For years I looked for a book that would cover travel to El Salvador. I have been married to a Salvadorena for 16 years and have made five trips to the country since 1991. I love El Salvador, its beauty and its wonderful people. You can't travel there without this book! Buy it today!

I'm Salvadoran and I'm married to a Jewish-American woman. She bought this book for us to take a tour in El Salvador. Let me tell you, this is the best guide book I've ever read. It's so easy to use and it has ALL the information about this little beautiful country that you need. I even used some of the information on my website, of course with the permission from the authors. Thank you Jeff, Julian and Veronica for making this possible.

Although I did learn a couple of new tricks (Flight Tracker in TheTrip.com) I was disappointed I didn't find anything new to save me money that I wasn't already using from reading magazine articles. The car rental information was severely lacking in this book. This is a very mysterious part of the travel industry, with prices jumping $100 a day. I would have liked more insight into why this happens and what the strategies are for getting good rates. Car rental discount codes are not even discussed.

This book was my bible when traveling around China. I was going to use Lonely Planet, but it wasn't much of a help in planning my trip. Travel for dummies wasn't just a book that I had to plop into the middle of Chgina with, rather I went into China knowing already where and how I was going to go across the country. Even with language difficulties I made it! Mr. Vadnai should be given a raise and asked to write some more!

Even though I spend a lot of time on the Net and I am very good at searching the Web, this book has proven useful whenever I want to find out something travel related. I use it mostly as a quick reference to keep track of URLs and sites. The directory section is my favorite part because I can flip through and find a bunch of sites that have the type of info I'm looking for. The author knows his stuff, but I do sometimes find the numbered lists a bit annoying, but those are in all For Dummies books, so I guess its not his fault.