I picked up this book looking for an accurate historical account of the gladitorial games in ancient Rome. It was not quite what I expected. While the author does make some effort to identify his sources, this is not a scholarly study.

This book is full of the kind of shadowy, ugly stuff that Edward Gibbon only hinted at in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Whereas Gibbon usually states that modern decency forbids him to give you the details, Mannix has no such compunctions. He luridly describes the horrors of the arena, leaving no graphic detail untouched. This makes the book fascinating, in a morbid sort of way, even as it gives the reader a sense of moral superiority over the wretches that delighted in such spectacles.

That said, the book left me with a bad taste in my mouth at times. My problem with books like this, that seek to entertain the reader with stories of true-life atrocities, is that no matter how much they villify the perpetrators, they are always written in a way to make the reader identify with the sadists rather than their victims. Am I supposed to find it entertaining to read about people being torn limb from limb? Shouldn't I rather empathize with these poor wretched human beings, who had feelings just like I do and suffered so needlessly? To hear about their sufferings from any perspective but their own puts me (psychologically speaking) on the side of the perpetrators rather than the victims.

Despite these misgivings, I think the book does have some value, precisely because it shows the reader just how far ethical standards have developed since the time of the Roman Empire. It has a cathartic value by reinforcing the reader's disgust at unbounded cruelty. For people like me who have an interest in Christian origins, it also shows just what the early Christians were revolting against (and perhaps also why their religion of love contains a violent dark side, represented by a hell full of tortures).

For people interested in a more scholarly study of the psychological aspects of the gladitorial games, I recommend "The Sorrows of the Ancient Romans" by Carlin A. Barton.

Mannix does a great job of making you feel like you are a part of the crowd at a Roman spectacle. His descriptions of chariot races and gladiator games are well done. He takes real gladiators, whose name has been recorded in history, and creates a "biography" and career for him. The only knock on the book is that some of the themes are adult in nature. Otherwise, it is a great insight into our times as well as those of ancient Rome. Good companion piece to the movie Gladiator.

Daniel P. Mannix's historically fictionalized book (The Way of the Gladiator) weaves a tapestry of engaging and often horrific images of the arena games that came to be a dominant element in Roman civilization. Rome, at this time, was steadily expanding her influence over the various regions of the west, and as the Empire grew, so did dissolution and corruption within its infrastructure. The Games ignited an excited rhythm in the mundane lives of the mob, and as the games evolved from events of competition and skill to pointless spectacles of sadistic murder, their excitement turned into a frenzied obsession that all but consumed their lives.Mannix's graphic accounts of the brutal history and evolution of the Roman Games provides a revealing glimpse into the Roman mob's obsession with violence and how the emperors used the games as a means of maintaining social stability and control of their crumbling Empire. Mannix delivers all the drama and violence that has come to symbolize the Roman Games through his poignant portrayals of the savage brutality of its many participants, and the unfortunate outcome of its countless victims. And while Mannix's prose tends to stray from historical accuracy, he nontheless achieves the goal of painting a uniquely vivid portrayal of Roman civilization,thus providing the reader with a clearer perspective of the developement and evolution of the Gladitorial Games. I personally enjoyed reading this book and I strongly recommend it to anyone interested in ancient world history and Roman society.

In view of the recent postings on this book, including by the author himself, I wanted to update some commentary I made in early 1998 on this site. I predicted that fundamentalists would not respond to this book, and the lengthy commentary by a person with that viewpoint proved me wrong. I didn't blame Harris for reacting vituperatively, although the anti-gay commentary seemed more directed to the visibility of gay people in American culture than to the book itself. Books like Harris's are needed by movements as correctives to the rah-rah propaganda that balances the still largely negative attitudes towards homosexuality and homosexuals. I disagreed with some of his analysis, but he moved certain aspects of his subjects forward and so the book was worth reading. What the fundamentalist who now recommends the book as a negative portrayal of gay life misses is that Harris is offering a critique of American life, using gay men as his study example. Now the people who read Allan Bloom selectively are doing the same thing with Harris, justifying their own animus against what they oppose with the words of their enemy. Insofar as I failed to see that this would occur, I owe an apology to Harris which I am publicly making here.

I had spotted Daniel Harris' "The Rise and Fall of Gay Culture" at a local bookstore and picked it up out of curiousity. I read it this summer when I had the chance. This semester at university, my sociology professor told us to choose a book about a subculture and discuss it, and I chose this book.

I think Harris is too bitter in his analysis of our current gay status. Sure, pride parades can be pathetic spectacles of leathermen, babies with rainbow patches, dogs with AIDSWalk shirts. But however much this culture has assimilitated, I doubt we should complain. To be able to confront issues concerning sexuality in all aspects of life is something that past generations of gays, specifically the gay men that Harris discusses, were not able to do. I appreciate his detailed analysis of certain aspects of gay male culture, such as the ads, bear culture, the leather movement--but I was disturbed by his characterization of AIDS as kitschified, and disagreed with many of his points. I think it's important to read this book critically, not openly. Taking what Harris says as verbatim would cause for much bitterness and, methinks, self-hatred. We don't need more of that, we have Jerry Falwell. There were certain things that Harris didn't cover which I wish he had, such as the rainbow as a symbol, the role of FTM transpersons, where Stonewall really fits, etcetera. Still, I would recommend this book to anyone interested in studying gay male culture from a subjective, critical perspective.

Author Daniel Harris's book of critical essays is breath of fresh air for gay scholars in the field of gay studies. Harris looks critically at several different areas of gay culture: gay males and "diva" worship, gay romance in the personal ads, how gay men helped the underwear revolution, the AIDS "crisis", leathermen, gay pornography in both film and literature, gay magazines, drag and gay propaganda. Whiles Harris's book is now six years old, it is for me, relevant and fresh as he argues about the dangers in assimilation into heterosexual, mainstream culture. I wished he would have pointed out more clearly how gay men can stop and fight against assimilation through building our culture which I think for any scholar is a very blurry answer. Be prepared, this book generated quite a bit of debate in a book group that I belong to in Chicago and I feel that it gets similar reactions in any part of gay community when it is read. For me, though I wished more gay men would read such a fine work as this. If anything can be said for this work, it does generate thought and critical discussion which I think more and more people do not want to engage in, because it is so much easier not to. Plus society doesn't reinforce this; so much as it does the idea of the "status quo."

I was very disappointed with this book. All of the other ASP books by WROX are excellent, so I felt safe in buying this work, assuming it would be excellent as well. Unfortunately, I was wrong. The main problem is the layout. Most programmer references are laid out in a dictionary style format. ASP 2.0 Programmer's Reference in laid out in chapters instead, making it difficult to find code snippets. To do so, one must search through the Index. For example: to find about Request.Form, you look in the Index and find: Request.Form collection. See Form Collection. Then you flip to Form Collections, 38-45 and then you have to search pages 38-45 to find anything...very irritating. Most of the book is like that. That is not to say that the book is completely without merit. The chapter on ASP 3.0 and what it will bring is mildly entertaining and informative. If you don't already have Beginning ASP 2.0, Professional ASP 2.0 and Professional ASP Techniques for Webmasters, any of those fine books would be a better investment.

After reading the other reviews on this book. I have to agree with some of what they are saying. This book is not up to the standards of the other ASP books by Wrox but I think it hits the mark on a lot of things. First and formost it is a reference book and it does an ok job at that. I found many of the examples useful but not nearly as thorough as Professional Active Server Pages 2.0 I wish it would have gone a little further in its discussion of handling oracle back end work. I think the whole world thinks that SQL Server 6.5 is what is used and that is just not the case. Oracle is a much more prevelant database for use with ASP than SQL Server 6.5

This book did me good. As an independent consultant, I have to constantly retrain at my own expense. In a few nights, I read 200 pages and was building small ASP database applications. It is worth a lot more than I paid for it. ASP 2.0 is very organized. It covers the basics from setting up the ASP environment to how to organize a good ASP application. While advertised as a programmer's reference, it has a lot more than just lists of objects and methods. It was enough to bridge me from C++ gunslinger to ASP pea-shooter. I found it thorough to an appropriate level, fast to read, and with a focus on performance. It does expect you to pick up VBScript yourself, but there are enough code snippets that I managed without having ever used VB more than a day. They can't cover every detail in a book of this brevity and I'm glad they didn't. If they did, I'd still be reading and not writing code.

I loved this book--and I'm not even a "foodie!" The Fourth Star reads like a well-crafted novel, with great characters, intricate relationships, and delicious tidbits about who gets what table, about the frenzied goings-on behind the kitchen door, and about what it's like when the President of the United States shows up at your restaurant for a meal. It's full of information I never realized I wantd to know, such as where the staff buys their stylish but extra-comfortable shoes, what the restaurant mark-up is on a bottle of water, how the timing works so that all the entrees arrive at the table at the same time, and just what goes into making a sublime dish. It's a fascinating read. I'd recommend this book to anyone.

The Fourth Star is a great book for gourmets, gourmands, and anyone else who loves to eat and cook wonderful food. If you've ever eaten at Daniel in Manhattan or at any other world-class restaurant, you know what a sublime experience it can be. The service is flawless, the food transports you to a level you never thought possible, the atmosphere is at once soothing and thrilling. Perfection, of course, does not come easily as Brenner so capably reveals. She spent a year observing and deconstructing the workings of this famed restaurant, from the front desk to the back pantry, from the wine cellar to the skybox from where Daniel commands the troops when he's not personally preparing a special dish for a VIP. With her keen eye (and remarkable ability to take shorthand!) Brenner has produced a detailed chronicle of modern-day high-stakes cuisine. She logged countless hours in the kitchen and much of the book is dedicated to capturing the rapid-fire precision with which Daniel Boulud and crew turn out one delectable dish after another, night after night. One warning though: Eat before you read-her lush descriptions of the food will make you ravenous after just a few pages.

As one who abandoned a graduate degree in English in order to pursue a career as a chef, I can't recommend this book more highly: it provides an invaluable glimpse into a world most culinary students can only imagine, and usually romanticize. I would make it required reading at all culinary schools. Daniel Boulud is the best in his field, both as a chef and as a restaurateur, and The Fourth Star gives us an amazing opportunity to witness just how he does it. From a literary perspective, the characters are as fascinating as those in a good novel, and the relentless pursuit of excellence (and of course the attempt to gain a fourth star) that goes on in the restaurant makes for a compelling read. This was one of those books that I was sorry to see end.

All The Dead Were Strangers, By Ethan Black 12/28/01

I felt lost in the first part of this book, it did not have good continuality, and if I had not read one of Ethan Black's earlier books where I became acquainted with the New York police detective Conrad Voort I wouldn't have finished it. But I'm glad I did, because the story came out alive in the middle of the book. It was interesting and alarming. It will give the reader a change to pick whose side he is on-the police's or the dark, very manipulative higher one, which may be one department or person, which reports to no one?

I found the book interesting because of its obvious, before or after, connection to what happened on September 11 and what is happening now. Mr. Ethan Black was unquestionably thinking out of the box when he wrote that book. It is definitely worth three stars in spite of the characteristics of some of his characters, which appears to change during the book.

As a mystery writer with my debut novel in its initial release, I love a solid thriller. ALL THE DEAD WERE STRANGERS is a solid thriller. Ethan Black's third novel (following THE BROKEN HEARTS CLUB and IRRESISTIBLE)deals with terrorism, the government's attempts to battle it, and a top-notch mystery story. Black's Conrad Voort, an NYPD detective, is passed a list of people around the country with connections to terrorism. Some are dead, perhaps murdered. Others include Dr. Jill Towne, with whom Voort becomes taken, and Frank Greene, who is hoping to blow up a nice chunk of New York City. A shadowy Saudi businessman/terrorist, Abu Bin Hussein, also plays a part in this story, as do numerous government operatives. Black has a well-plotted--topical and timely--story. His characters are well-drawn, and his writing is excellent. ALL THE DEAD WERE STRANGERS is an excellent suspense novel.

Ethan Black returns with a great novel that's even better than 'Irresistible'. A timely thriller that holds nothing back

When Conrad Voort meets up with an old best friend named Meechum Keefe at a tavern in Greenwich Village, he finds that his friend is scared and paranoid. Meechum gives Voort a list of five names and addresses and asks him to find something that ties these names together. The next day Voort finds Meechum is missing, and with the only clue he has to go on, he starts investigating the list. Voort soon finds out that there is very little to tie the people on the list together. The first three on the list seem to have died in separate accidents. The last two are still alive, for now. When Voort tries to locate the last two people, he realizes there lives are in danger. When he locates number four, a beautiful doctor, he falls in love. He soon makes a connection. It seems that terrorism might tie all these people together.

Terrorists and secret organizations all play a crucial role in this well crafted and very well written thriller. From the descriptive narrative to the tight dialogue, this story puts you in the center. Very entertaining and very involving. I very much look forward to Ethan Black's future novels.

Highly recommended.

Inside the covers:
A scorpion wants to cross a river, but he can't swim, so he asks a frog to carry him across. The frog says "are you crazy? If I put you on my back, you'll sting me and I'll die." The scorpion says, "That's stupid. If I do that we both die." So the frog says yes. And when they're in the middle of the river, the scorpion stings him. They're going under. The scorpion says, "I can't help it. It's my nature."

The book 'Robinson Crusoe' is one of my all time favorite books. I was turned onto classics recently when I started to look into the classics section of the books store. I wanted to know what all the hype was about books and stories such as this one. Being a classic tends to give way to the idea that the book has a lot to offer, and that is no different for 'Robinson Crusoe', a remarkable story of remarkable circumstances that present themselves to the main character. Although the story, often dubbed 'the story of a man stranded on an island for 26 years', sounds dull and uneventful, nothing could be further from the truth. Those who've never read it refer to it as that, a story of a man stranded on an island for 26 years. Those of us who have read it understand that it's much more than that. This may be the best story ever composed. The swift current of the novel is quick-paced and could include nothing more to keep a reader entertained.

Regarding the moral implications such as those of slavery, the novel heavily disfavors the ideas we have in society today by condoning and thinking only once about slavery. I believe this further treats us in a piece of literature that also acts as a diary of times. What better way to tell a story, than to simply tell the truth? And in those times the truth was that slavery was a part of society and nothing more shameful than modern day coffee drinking. It was a business and although unfavorable today, it was the truth of the times. I have the same feeling about the references to religion. Those times were different and act today as a time capsule for readers to understand what things may have been like only 300 years ago.

Literally, the novel uses (by modern standards) odd English and can be difficult for novice readers. However, even for a novice reader the novel can be a challenge to learn about how the writers of our past wrote novels. As the reader proceeds through the story, more is understood and eventually the story flows as freely as a morning newspaper. I would encourage users to read this knowing that it is almost three hundred years old, and that the slang is thick and different from ours.

The storytelling is nothing short of a masterpiece. The story itself touches down on many aspects of the human condition; hatred, happiness, courage, perseverance, loyalty, love, treachery and friendship. We can all relate at one point or another with Robinson Crusoe.

Regarded as possibly the first English novel ever, this tells the story of a man who's found himself alone and shipwrecked on a deserted island; the many years he spends making a new home for himself, the many times he tries to escape his paradise dungeon and the thick courage it took to outlast the immeasurable feat of solitude. This is the story of a man who finds one footprint on a deserted island.

It con-founds the mind to read someone's review of a 300 year old book and see that they were put out by all that 'religious stuff'. Like somehow the world has been wrong about one of the greatest works of literature for 3 centuries, that is until some Generation X-er comes along in 2001 and causes everyone to realize this is just a boring book, written by some racist capitalist guy who likes to use big words! Of course!, how could we have been so stupid?
No,'dude', this is a book about how we as humans will always suffer until we admit and submit to the one true God. In other words it's a religious journey. This is a book about the folly of youth, when you believe you can conquer the world and what happens when you try without any faith being involved in it.
As for the slavery aspect, the fact is Crusoe himself was made a slave for years and I don't hear anyone complaining about it. At this point in world history slavery or servitude was an accepted behavior, like it or not. Anyone could be a slave, of any race or color as the book points out. Friday submitted will-fully to Robinson out of gratitude for Crusoe having saved his life. He wasn't kept tied up out back like a dog, Robinson loved this man and his love was returned. Robinson loved him enough to teach him Christianity and to turn from his cannibal ways.
I love how it's always the 'open-minded' people who are the first to want to burn the books they don't like.

"Robinson Crusoe"(can't underline), written by Daniel Defoe, teaches a life lesson through Crusoe's thrilling adventures and is recommended to people from age ten and up (minor violence is involved in the story). The story starts as young Robinson Crusoe faces a ship wreck and gets trapped in an uninhabited island. Desperate to survive, he attempts to create an environment where he can live with convenience. Through many conflicts, Robinson's wits are also shown, one of the things to catch while reading this book. Borrow the book from the library to experience the great excitement and to find out what happens to Crusoe in the island. This is one of those books that will make you stay up over mid-night.

Seeking to reprise his earlier success with The Last of the Mohicans, James Fenimore Cooper went on to write several other tales built around his heroic character Natty Bumppo (called "Hawkeye" in Mohicans and "Pathfinder" in the book of THAT name). In this one our hero is known as "Deerslayer" for his facility on the hunt and is shown as the younger incarnation of that paragon of frontier virtue we got to know in the earlier books. In this one, too, we see how he got his most famous appellation: "Hawkeye". But, this time out, our hero comes across as woefully tiresome (perhaps it's because we see too much of him in this book, where he's almost a side character in Mohicans). Yet some of Cooper's writing skills seem sharper here (he no longer avers that Natty is the taciturn type, for instance, while having the fellow forever running off at the mouth). But, while there are some good moments & excitement, this tale really doesn't go all that far...and its rife with cliches already overworked from the earlier books. The worst part is the verbose, simple-minded self-righteousness of our hero, himself, taken to the point of absolute unbelievability. He spurns the love of a beautiful young woman (though he obviously admires her) for the forester's life (as though he couldn't really have both), yet we're expected to believe he's a full-blooded young American male. And he's insufferably "moral", a veritable goody two-shoes of the woodlands. At the same time, the Indians huff & puff a lot on the shore of the lake where Deerslayer finds himself in this tale (in alliance with a settler, his two daughters, a boorish fellow woodsman, and Deerslayer's own erstwhile but loyal Indian companion Chingachgook -- "The Big Sarpent," as Natty translates his name). But the native Americans seem ultimately unable to overwhelm the less numerous settlers who have taken refuge from them in the middle of Lake Glimmerglass (inside a frontier house built of logs and set in the lake bed on stilts). There is much racing around the lake as Deerslayer and the others strive to keep the few canoes in the vicinity from falling into the hands of the tribe of marauding Hurons who have stopped in the nearby woods on their way back up to Canada (fleeing the American colonists and the British at the outbreak of English-French hostilities -- since these Hurons are allied with the French). And there are lots of dramatic encounters, with some deaths, but the Indians seem to take it all with relative equanimity, while trying to find a way to get at the whites who are precariously ensconced out on the lake. (It seems to take them the better part of two days, for instance, to figure out they can build rafts to make up for their lack of canoes -- and why couldn't they just build their own canoes, in any case -- and how is it they don't have any along with them since it's obvious they'll have to cross a number of waterways to successfully make it back to the homeland in Canada?) The settler and the boorish woodsman, for their part, do their stupid best to attack the Indians unnecessarily, getting captured then ransomed in the process, while Deerslayer and Chingachgook contrive to get the loyal Indian's betrothed free from the Hurons (it seems she has been kidnapped by them -- the reason Deerslayer and Chingachgook are in the vicinity in the first place). In the meantime the simple-minded younger daughter of the settler (Cooper seems to like this motif since he used a strong daughter and a simpler sister in Mohicans, as well) wanders in and out of the Indian's encampment without sustaining any hurt on the grounds that the noble red men recognize the "special" nature of this poor afflicted young woman (Cooper used this motif in Mohicans, too). In the end there's lots of sturm und drang but not much of a tale -- at least not one which rings true or touches the right chords for the modern reader. Cooper tried to give us more of Hawkeye in keeping with what he thought his readers wanted but, in this case, more is definately too much. --- Stuart W. Mirsk

Had "Deerslayer" been James Fenimore Cooper's first "Leatherstocking" tale -- who knows? Maybe it would have been his last! But his mythic hero, Nathaniel Bumppo (a.k.a. Natty, Deerslayer, The Long Carrabine, Hawkeye, et. al.)had such a mid-19th Century following that Cooper was practically guaranteed an eager, receptive audience for his tales.

I won't say straight out that "Deerslayer" is a terrible book. If nothing else, Donald Pease's introductory essay informs us of several plot complexities that are intertwined with Cooper's personal life, such as the re-invention of Natty Bumppo to buttress and justiry Cooper's real-life legal property claims. But, if "Deerslayer" is not a terrible book, it is for hundreds of pages something less than scintillating. Why? I think it comes down to this. Patient readers can endure quite a lot of moralizing, or wide swaths of verbosity. But put the two together and it's hard to endure.

The story takes place on Cooper's real-life ancestral home, Lake Otsego in mid-upstate New York (my friends tell me the pronunciation is "Otsaga" with a short "a") where we first encounter a youthful Natty Bumppo and his unlikely fellow traveler, Harry "Hurry" March, an indestructible, Paul Bunyonesque figure whose credo can be summarized as "might makes right." Natty (given the sobriquet, Deerslayer, by his adopted Delaware tribe) has arrived at the lake to join his companion, Chingachgook, (the "Serpant"), in his quest to liberate his future bride, Wah-ta-Wah, who was kidnapped by a band of Huron Indians. Harry March has come to the lake to capture the heart of Judith Hutter, who along with her father, Thomas, and simple-minded sister, Hetty, live on the lake, occupying either a floating ark or a fortress-like structure built upon the lake.

Eventually, the Hutters are surrounded by dozens of fierce Huron warriors, who are on the warpath during the opening days of the mid-18th Century French & Indian Wars. Seemingly, it was all there for Cooper to capitalize on: just a handful of isolated white settlers, whose only protection from scalp-seeking, torture-minded skulking Hurons is a crank sailing craft or a lake home on stilts. But Cooper rejects his own dramatic setting to stage a morality play, and a heavy-handed one at that.

A word about the Hutter sisters. Diametrically opposed siblings are at least as old as the Bible, and Cooper employed them in several novels, including "The Last of the Mohicans" and "The Spy" (far superior works than "Deerslayer".) Hetty is Cooper's example of purity and innocence, but we can leave her to the Hurons, who display an admirable level of respect and reverence for the frail-minded girl. I suspect she would have fared much better in the hands of so-called savages than in the typical 18th Century colonial settlement. It is her vain, beautiful and high-tempered older sister, Judith, whose character is of more interest, and requires in my opinion a little rehabilitation.

It is never made explicit by Cooper (no doubt it would have scandalized his audience) but I think it's fair to say that Judith Hutter -- much to her regret later on -- granted her last favors to at least one colonial British officer (maybe several.) And, if this is a mis-reading of the text, she most certainly did "something" to set the colonial tongues a wagging. Whatever her "failings", they would not be recognized as such by modern day readers (perhaps her vanity and self-centeredness would go unnoticed as well.) There was, however, little tolerance for a Judith Hutter in the 18th Century, and Cooper would have never permitted Natty Bumppo -- young, virginal and selfless -- to fall in love with this high-spirited young woman. (Besides, it would not have chronologically tied in with his future exploits.)

But I'm not entirely convinced. Judith Hutter possesses several admirable traits, not the least of which is intelligence, bravery and a certain loving devotion to her frail sister. She also recognizes Natty Bumppo's virtues, as well as her own faults, and is more than willing to embrace the former and cast off the latter. Her love for Natty is obvious for hundreds of pages, but somehow he doesn't quite get it! In the end, the girl must swallow her pride and make explicit what even modern day women would find nearly unthinkable -- she makes an outright marriage proposal. Alas, Natty Bumppo is simply "too good" for her.

To use a modern day expression, Cooper is over the top with the virtuous Natty Bumppo. At some point, self-abnegation is just another form of narcissism -- only more complex than the garden variety of narcissism possessed by Judith Hutter (and other mere mortals.) In his introductory essay, Donald Pease points out that the rejection of Judith Hutter balances the brutal rejection Natty Bumppo receives at the hands of Mabel Dunham in an earlier Leatherstocking tale, "The Pathfinder". Maybe. But consider this. To honor his parole from the Hurons, Natty Bumppo chooses torture over Judith Hutter. And, ultimately, he chooses a famous rifle over her -- a gift she lovingly gives to him in recognition of how much he would appreciate such a weapon. It comes down to this: torture and guns over Judith Hutter! Hmmm.... I'll leave that one for modern day psychologists.

I've given "Deerslayer" three stars because Cooper is, after all, one of our nation's early literary masters, and "Deerslayer" is not without its moments. There's a wonderful give-and-take scene between Natty Bumppo and the Huron Chief, Rivenoak, as they negotiate the release of Thomas Hutter and Harry March. (My advice to modern day corporations: don't bother with negotiation consultants -- save your money and read Chapter 14.) And for those who still believe in the right of every American to bear arms, take it from the author who created our nation's first true literary sharpshooter. There's a haunting, prescient admonishment about leaving loaded guns lying about the house (pages 219-220.)

Cooper's final Leatherstocking Tale, The Deerslayer, depicts young Natty Bumppo on his first warpath with lifelong friend-to-be, Chingachgook. The story centers around a lake used as the chronologically subsequent setting for Cooper's first Leatherstocking Tale, The Pioneers. Tom Hutter lives on the lake with his daughters and it is here that Deerslayer (Bumppo) intends to meet Chingachgook to rescue Chingachgook's betrothed from a band of roving Iroquois. A desperate battle for control of the lake and it's immediate environs ensues and consumes the remainder of the story.

Throughout this ultimate Leatherstocking Tale, Cooper provides Natty much to postulate upon. Seemingly desiring a comprehensive finality to the philosophy of Bumppo, Cooper has Natty "speechify" in The Deerslayer more so than in any other book, though the character could hardly be considered laconic in any. Though the reason for this is obvious and expected (it is, after all, Cooper's last book of the series), it still detracts a tad from the pace of the story as Natty picks some highly inappropriate moments within the plot to elaborate his position. And, thus, somewhat incongruently, Cooper is forced to award accumulated wisdom to Bummpo at the beginning of his career rather than have him achieve it through chronological accrual.

All things considered, however, The Deerslayer is not remarkably less fun than any other Leatherstalking Tale and deserves a similar rating. Thus, I award The Deerslayer 4+ stars and the entire Leatherstocking Tales series, one of the better examples of historical fiction of the romantic style, the ultimate rating of 5. It was well worth my time.

LP Vietnam is an O.K. book if you just want to know how to get around, basic accomodations, etc. There are some good information in the book, but not enough. If you are interested in knowing about modern Vietnam, you are much much better off reading Catfish and Mandala by Andrew Pham and Shadows and Wind by Robert Templer. These two authors did an extraordinary job of describing what is happening in Vietnam right now. I am very disappointed at the guide books to Vietnam such as Lonely Planet, Rough Guides, Fodor's etc. Should they be unbiased sources who actually tell the readers the stories behind the sights? Nope! they didn't do the job that well. Instead they rely too much on the information which is given by the government propaganda machine which is totally fabricated. For example, on page 467 of the Lonely Planet Vietnam book, the story about the One Pillar Pagoda is mentioned that it was destroyed by the French before they left Hanoi. Guess what? The French didn't destroy it, it was the Communists themselves who destroyed it at the time because it was described as a remain of a feudalistic, decadent, reactionary past (a sort of Cultural revolution that is copied from China). It was rebuilt not because Hanoi suddenly had a change of heart to treasure the national treasures. It was rebuilt because of the tourists' money. What a disappointment for these supposedly guide books that really mislead the readers.

Just came back from a three week trip to Vietnam with three books: the Lonely Planet, the Rough Guide, and Footprint Handbook.

The Rough Guide is the best guidebook around for the country. It is superior to the Lonely Planet guide in the breadth and depth of coverage and especially its accuracy. I liked LP for other countries but here they did a very poor job.

I have not found even one instance where Lonely Planet provided information that Rough did not have. If you are traveling to the north, you may want to consider reading Footprint before you leave -- it has some interesting information.

Also, all hotels -- even the top ones -- can be negotiated down in price. Send them an e-mail and ask for special rates, corporate rates, etc. You can stay at the Metropole in Hanoi for less than half their rack rate.

I make regular trips to Vietnam and I've used both the Rough Guide and Lonely Planet. Having seen the two latest editions, page by page, Lonely Planet is, simply, better. LP provides far more detail, more maps (all of which are much more user friendly and accurate), is loaded with contemporary information (NGOs, motor-biking etc), has better photographs, good illustrations, and entertaining side-bars. The book introduces us to the personalities and characters who run guest houses, restaurants, bars, boutiques, and so forth, and it really makes you feel like a local. The "reader from France" seems to have a personal animus against the writers and Lonely Planet. But otherwise, what could be the problem? I found this guide well researched, consistently useful, and fun to read - that's what I want when I'm on the road.

I used this book for an undergraduate seminar on conspiracy. It is most useful for providing backgorund on some major, persistent conspriacy theory, explaining why, for example, Jews and Masons are frequently targeted. But there are some big problems too. For example, how can you review the history of conspiracies and leave out the theme of witch hunts? It does pose a problem for Pipes, who prefers to believe conspiracy theories were more predominant after the French Revolution. Pipes fails to realize how important gender is in conspiracy theory.

Some sweeping generalizations are made. Pipes confounds conspiracy theory with radical critiques of the elitist school of thought. He can be quite inconsistent. Winston Churhill is said not to hve been contaminated by his conspiracy theories, but Jesse Jackson is. Leninism is not merely examined for elements of conspiratorial thinking, it's conspiratorial at its heart.

Not a bad book in many repects, but beware the rightist biases.

Dan Hellinger, Webster University

The reviews here are ample enough reason to read this intriguing book. I became interested in conspiracy theory on the evening of September 11th when someone said to me something about how we'll never learn the real truth because you can't believe the government. I was a little more than perplexed by this back-to-the-paranoid-70's statement, and I decided to look for books on the topic.

It's an amazing book. Conspiracy theory is.... well, everywhere. Few great names have been untouched by its allures. We all know that it was behind the Holocaust, but how many of us know to what extent conspiracy theory defined the Soviet regime's genocidal practices as well? Furthermore, conspiracy theory controls politics in many areas of the world to this day.

Reviews on this page point further to the problem of conspiracy theory in our midst. "Wake up people! This author belongs to the Council of Foreign Relations, that is a documented fact." AND "We all realize the existence of people with inordinantly fearful views of the world. These people are called paranoid. When these people obsess on certain topics, the result can be conspiracy theories. Alternatively, sometimes these people actually discover important things that the rest of us have overlooked."

If you want to understand where reviewers like this are coming from, read Pipes' book. Because, if you take nothing else from it, you will discover that conspiracy theories are not harmless. Most real conspiracies began with a conspiracy theory, and the 20th century is bathed in blood as a result.

Daniel Pipes is an anti-conspiracy theorist and he makes some good arguments against such allegedly paranoid thinking. Sure you don't trust the mainstream media, but why should you trust your local, possibly wacko, conspiracy theorist? You've read all the paranoid theories, why not read a critique against such theories? It will be a challenge and also just plain good for you.

Pipes says that we should avoid paranoid thinking because it demonizes others that are not to blame and the evidence used against them is faulty. Amusingly, he describes antisemitic theorists who have not even met a Jew.

Pipes most valuable contribution is his history of conspiracy theories, mainly involving Jews and Freemasons at first, and then British and Americans in later times. During the Crusades, antisemitism became more systematic in its hatred and developed conspiracy theories against Jews, in this time of intolerant religious fervor. During the French Revolution, people we're looking for an easy way to explain such a messy and bloody event and began blaming the revolution on the Jews and Freemasons. In more modern times, the world powers of Britain and America were blamed for the world's troubles especially during the Lenin and Stalin regimes which concocted anti-imperialist conspiracy theories. Hitler focused more on antisemitic theories. During this age of totalarianism, paranoid thinking became status quo and murder of "subversives" became commonplace. Pipes also gives an insightful analysis of the characteristics of conspiracy theories.

This is a challenging book for true believers in conspiracy theories and a book that debunkers will enjoy. Perhaps Pipes could have debunked one conspiracy theory directly and this may be a weakness. Also, he does not deal with quotes from society's elites such a Henry Kissinger who says that we will have global government. So maybe Pipes has oversimplified as much as the conspiracy theorists have oversimplified. Yet still, you've heard that many things are too good to be true, maybe many conpiracy theories are too bad to be true.

For those who have followed the trials (literally) and tribulations of Butch Karp and his one-eyed, gun-totin', walk-on-the-wild-side wife/lawyer/partner in crime Marlene Ciampi, "Reckless Endangerment" should prove to be as endearing a story as the titles preceding it. Read in order they paint an interesting hindsight picture of the late seventies and early eighties as Robert Tanenbaum relates the gruesome, thrilling and sometimes hilarious life and times in the NYPD Homicide Bureau. In this episode, Marlene and Butch's daughter, Lucy, really takes top billing. The polyglot (she has learned Mandarin, French, Tex-Mex Spanish, and some Arabic) kid, along with her shady Vietnamese mentor/babysitter, Tran, leads her parents and the cops around the Big Apple in search of Arabs, Jews, and a sadistic/wounded/crazy Mexican killer-child named El Chivato among others. The escapades often reach the height of unreality but who cares?? The ending was a bit! too pat, but I did not want the story to end. So, Mr. Tanenbaum, give up the law career and write full time, okay?

Tanenbaum scores again with the further adventures of Ass't DA Butch Karp, wife Marlene and daughter Lucy.

For the latest hardcover, Act Of Revenge, from HarperCollins, Publishers' Weekly opined this dysfunctional family will provide wonderful sequels for years to come.

If you haven't read Tanenbaum, you are missing a great series. Get started!

I happened on this latest installment of Butch Karp's adventures by Robert Tanenbaum more or less by accident and was surprised by the amazing characters. The book was hard to put down and I am now looking forward to going back and reading all the other books in the series. What a great discovery! I note that the reader reviews are not at all consistent, and tend to be either 'love it' or 'hate it.' Well, put me down in the 'love it' category. I liked Butch and Marlene, and their strong relationship. Lucy and Tran were my favorites, though. I also enjoyed El Chivato as one of the most colorful killers in my recollection.