Thomas O'Neil's "Movie Awards" is an absolutely no lose purchase for even a casual movie maven. Serious movie fans should be enthralled. It's all here-all the important awards from 1927-1999. Listed are such disparate grantors as the New York Film Critics, the Writer's Guild, the Screen Actors Guild, the Directors Guild, the Golden Globes and the Academy Awards.
Trivia and solid information alike abounds. This reviewer was shocked-shocked!-to read that "The Searchers" was nominated for NO awards in 1956. The pages devoted to 1969 make no mention of the Hollywood aphorism that John Wayne received that year's Best Actor Oscar (for "True Grit") to make up for being bypassed in 1956. The entire cast and Director of "The Searchers" was ignored! I also learned that Clark Gable did not win the Oscar for "Gone With the Wind" and that Tex Ritter's theme to "High Noon" won an Oscar in 1952. I still believe that is the best of the themes because it was an integral part of the actual movie. A trivia section informs us that Walter Brennan won the most Academy Awards for an actor (though not for "My Darling Clementine") and William Friedkin was the youngest Director to an Oscar. For which movie? Buy the book and check page 767. The very fact that there IS a page 767 indicates that this work cannot be devoured at one or two sittings. This is a thick handbook to be appreciated over a span of time as we watch those old classics one by one. Maybe when I read the section on 1949, I will learn why "The Third Man' got 0 Oscar nominations and why the entire cast of "A Letter to 3 Wives" went similarly empty handed. I can't wait.

Mr. O'Neil has done it again! His new book, Movie Awards, is fun to read and chock full of fascinating facts. Long a fan of his (I always watch him on E! network), I'm happy to see Mr. O'Neil finally take on the Oscars, having already covered the Emmy's and Grammy's previously. This book is a great read and is even more fun savored over the course of time as you pick out one fun fact...then another....then another...

OK, so a few typos and mistakes made it into this book's first edition. They'll be fixed in future updates. Meantime, here's what to think of this book over all, according to the pros:

"For the film buff, this year-by-year rundown on the Oscars, the Golden Globes and other awards is a dilly. And dishy, too!" -- PEOPLE MAGAZINE

"Its a vertiable feast for the trivia junkie. Not only does O'Neil list the awards chronologically, from 1927 to 1999, but he also introduces each year with behind-the-scenes, blow-by-blow info culled from the archives of Variety, New York Times and a number of other sources. There's even trivia about each of the awards. While it's undeniably a fantastic reference, it's also a pretty darn good and frequently amusing read. It's a one-stop awards info shop and deserves a place on the bookshelf." -- DIRECTORS GUILD OF AMERICA MAGAZINE

"Numerous excellent books chronicle the Oscars or cite awards, but none combines pure pleasure and fact so well, at such a good price. Essential for all libraries." -- LIBRARY JOURNAL

Any fan of G.K. Chesterton would enjoy Peters' synopsis of the Topsy Turvy Giant's thoughts on the arts. Peters provides an excellent synopsis of the subject. His most admirable quality in writing this book is allowing Chesterton to speak for himself.

Peters hit the nail on the head in summarizing Chesterton's opinion of art and how it uniquely qualifies man as children of God. Chesterton argued that the arts show the difference between men and animals to be qualitative and not quantative. A man does not paint more than a monkey! He paints!

Peters accurately states that "in Chesterton's view, the arts are the very essence of humanity, the very thing that differentiates the human from the nonhuman, in that sense the very breath of life from God."

If you have never read Chesterton before, I recommend that you start with Orthodoxy, Everlasting Man or Heretics. Once you get one or more of these under your belt you will not only understand what Peters is getting at, but you will also have a greater desire to find out just what Chersterton had to say on the subject, why it is important to man, and what significance it has for the Christian.

To that end, I recommend this as your second or third Chesterton book. Happy reading!

Thomas Peters does an excellent job of presenting G.K. Chesterton's thoughts and observations on imagination and the arts. This book is a wonderful and much needed antidote to today's cultural climate, in which the arts establishment seems to value ugliness and outrageousness above all. Here are a few of GKC's countercultural opinions: Fashionable nihilism and pessimism are among the greatest threats to the free and fruitful imagination; humility and wonder enhance creativity, while pride inhibits it; good poetry has rhyme and rhythm; there's nothing wrong with beauty in art; a play should be a treat for the audience, not a realistic slice-of-life; it is not a legitimate use of the arts to make people either bad or unhappy; the "higher frivolity" is better than the "higher criticism" and other pretensions. You'll find all this and more in this well-written book, which includes many quotations (and a few drawings) from GKC himself. And it's all at least as relevant today as it was in Chesterton's time.

Mr. Peters has done a great job at presenting the essence of the creative Chesterton in this short but fulfilling book. While much certainly has been written on Chesterton's brilliant reasoning or his political philosophies, at the root of his thinking was the simple idea that God saw creation as a pleasing thing, and so should we. Chesterton brought not only his firmly-rooted faith, but also a child-like wonder and a fantastic imagination to everything he wrote about, from sociology to satire. Peters' book is a satisfying primer on this idea, and it draws from a diversity of material. Each chapter gives a brief, but not abstract, summary of an aspect of Chesterton or his work. One, for instance, gives an overview of GKC's forays into songwriting, drama and illustration, while another outlines his views on art critics and "bohemians" -- people who Chesterton saw as possessing a distinct lack of imagination. The last chapter serves as an overview of Chesterton's writing career. The book is not exhaustive by any means, but it is complete. Artists and writers will appreciate this book, and I would especially recommend it to those relatively new to Chesterton, as you will find it to be a valuable and informative introduction, as well as an enjoyable read.

Ackroyd uses the eighteenth century forger-poet, Thomas Chatterton, as the main subject of a stylish examination of how humans can conjure up pasts which suit their sense of romance rather than dealing with the mundane facts, and somewhat paradoxically, how they can accept present appearances without question.

As with other novels by Ackroyd ("The Great Fire of London" and "Hawksmoor" for example), past periods both intersect with and influence the present. Ackroyd's London both lives in the present and lives through, or with, its past: what we perceive as present reality is in essence a mixture of now and then.

The story flows between:

- the present, when the discovery of a supposed portrait of the middle-aged Chatterton (who in fact died in his teens) sets off an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the poet's death;

- Chatterton's boyhood and youth in eighteenth century Bristol and London; and

- a Victorian painter working on a depiction of Chatterton's death.

As the investigation unfolds and the time periods mix, truth and reality become unreliable: our view of the both past and present is incomplete, we have to rely on sources who may themselves be unreliable and fill in the gaps by use of our own imagination. The result of this is that we either take things on trust and/or let our imaginations run wild. Thus we can be duped - as Chatterton duped contemporary audiences.

Did Thomas Chatterton, one of the great forger/poets of the 18th century, die of an overdose of laudanum in 1770? Or did he fake his own death and continue merrily publishing work under the names of recently deceased poets?

When novelist George Meredith posed as Chatterton in Henry Wallace's painting "The Death of Chatterton," is it true that the painter made off with his oblivious model's wife?

In the present day, were the papers found by poetaster Charles Wychwood in Bristol really the confessions of Chatterton written in his own hand? And what about that painting of Chatterton as a middle-aged man? (He was supposedly 17 when he died.)

Will literary "resurrectionist" Harriet Scrope succeed in taking Wychwood's work on Chatterton and passing it off as her own, just as Stewart Merk merrily signed the dead painter Seymour's name to his own work?

Why am I asking so many questions?

Because there are no answers. That's all right, though, because the questions are great; and they just keep on coming. If you read this book, you will sink deep into a morass of counterfeiting, fraud, and outright fakery.

Be prepared to be bamboozled ... and entertained.

Thomas Chatterton was a real 18th-century poet. As a teenager he invented a 15th-century poet, Thomas Rowley and wrote poems in an appropriately archaic style. As a young man he went off to London, wrote poems and short stories, but could not sell enough of his work to make a living and committed suicide by eating arsenic. The poems of Rowley were collected and published after Chatterton's death, but it was not until the third edition that it was revealed the poems were entirely Chatterton's invention and his short and tragic life was embraced by the Romantics: Keats wrote a sonnet to Chatterton, Wordsworth used him in a poem, and he was the subject of Oscar Wilde's last lecture.

It is not surprising that Peter Ackroyd would be interesting in writing a novel about Chatterton's life, since the author has long been interested in masks, impersonation, and other ways of presenting a public pretense. Consequently, this is not a historical novel, although it deals with real people and real times. After all, little is really known about Chatterton beyond his poems. Obviously dissatisfied with the time and place of his birth, Chatterton creates Rowley as a way of improving his lot in life, or, at least, that is clearly his intention. But in the real world Chatterton cannot function. He takes pride in writing political satires that attack everyone and everything, but in failing to have convictions and a particular point of view, he reveals that in presenting other identities he has lost his true one. In this regard and in this novel, however, he is clearly not alone.

"Chatterton" is clearly not a conventional historical novel is that Ackroyd repeatedly plays with chronology. He is more interested in comparing and contrasting events than he is in sequencing them appropriately. There are four stories intertwined in this novel. Charles Wychwood is a contemporary figure, but also a failed and doomed poet, who is intrigued by a portrait which may or may not be of Chatterton. Since the painting is dated 1802, over three decades after Chatterton's suicide, it may or may not be real, but if it is, it raises the question of whether Chatterton really committed suicide in 1770. Could that have been but another instance of transformation and a means of adopting a new identity? In contrast there is Harriet Scrope, a popular novelist who has engaged in fakery and plagiarism her entire literary career and who is now trying to write her memoirs. She has a friend, Sarah Tilt, who is an art historian writing a book about death paintings and once again we have a painting whose authenticity raises interesting questions.

This leads us to George Meredith, a poet who was used by the painter Wallis as the model for his "Death of Chatterton" painting. In one of those true stories that reads like bad soap opera, the painter ran off with Mrs. Meredith, only to abandon her after she became pregnant. Consequently, Meredith becomes susceptible to the romantic tragedy of Chatterton's death as well. Chatterton himself is presented by means of an autobiographical document, which comes into the possession of Wychwood, drawing the little circle of characters even closer despite the disparate times and places of their existence.

Even without my detailing them you can get a sense for how these four stories are interwoven, the myriad possibilities of linkage drawing the reader further and further into Ackroyd's narrative web. The narrative structure, if we can even call it that, may well be too postmodern for some tastes, but there is a structure here and not some sort of episodic free association. I find it provocative and compelling. Of course every major character in the book wears masks within masks and the novel circles around its meaning rather than arriving at a profound and calculated conclusion. Ultimately, for me, Chatterton is not so much the main character as the dominant metaphor for Ackroyd's novel.

Tom Peters tells us that he can boil his entire management philosophy down to one sentence: "Crazy times call for crazy organizations."

The new marketplace in one word is "fashion." Every market is becoming a fashion market. "That means: fickle, fleeting, ephemeral, faddish, and unfair." Peters says you can thrive in the marketplace if you'll:

"Free the human imagination . . . Get close to and serve the customer. . . Customize products and services . . . Abandon everything; continuously reinvent yourself.. .Access the brainware around you. . . Know the front line . . . Demolish the monolith. . . Create teams that allow people to express their personalities."

Peters says a corporation today must be "curious." Don't expect the personnel in the personnel department to hire curious people. Peters says HR people operate by this unwritten rule:

"Thou shalt not hire a person who has an unexplained nanosecond in their life past the age of three."

They want the person who maintained a 4.0 grade average through graduate school and "has not had an interesting thought in their entire life."

They don't want any people who drop out of college, spend a year and a half in Europe, and offer no explanation. That, says Peters, is just the kind of behavior to look for when you're ready to hire curious people. He adds: "Hire a few genuine off-the-wall types. Collect weirdoes."

Peters says he is totally serious about this: "This is coldly logical stuff." Nobody disagrees that markets are weird, "but how are you going to conquer weird markets with stuffed shirts?"

I liked "In Search of Excellence" but thought the concepts (& certainly companies) didn't stand the test of time. I read "Liberation Management" with some trepidation.

My initial reaction on this book was, "Tom's gone off the deep end, he's doing this just to be provocative" - that's a good enough reason to read this book, but I wouldn't have rated it well just based on that.

If you look at today's business environment, he really wasn't a radical. Ideas that he plugged (Turn all work into a project, outsource, turn everything into a profit center) don't really seem so crazy. His mantra of speed certainly fit the period we just went through. His companies (example: EDS) even did better than prior books.

I've read all of Tom's books - if you want one to guide how you manage and lead, this one is it...

A fantastic book with mind-blowing detail and scope. Introduces (and complements with research!) many of the important 'management' topics that have gained popularity in the last few years. Which is impressive considering the book was written 8 years ago!

Topics include: Network Organisations and other non-hierarchy-based organizational models, Networked Markets, Knowledge Management, reduced 'mass'-marketing, etc, etc, etc...

It's impressive that he has been able to capture many of these trends BEFORE the proliferation of the World Wide Web.

Also preempts some of his own more recent movements, like the plain-English movement and the Wow! Project movement that advocate categorization in terms of 'wow!' and 'yuck' projects.

His latest '50List' books are much more digestible and prescriptive - if that is what you prefer.

Having read Beger's "Invitation to Sociology" I felt sufficiently enthused and bought his "Construction of Reality". Oh boy. Was that an error on my part! Here, Berger is nearly impenetrable from the very beginning and throughout, the text structure is mind boggling (it's never quite clear what the author is talking about, and *why* he addresses what he addresses, and why here and not some other place; a profusion of very slippery expressions (Something or other "is not empirically available" for example; seems like this "empirically available" is one of his favourite expressions, and it *is* sort of glibly striking, but what exactly does it mean? Many occurrences of such stuff... a lot of ponderous latinizing -- "ipso facto", "sui generis", "mutatis mutandis", someone "qua" something, etc. -- annoying and uncalled for; it is highly reminiscent of the logorrheaic prolixity typical of psychoanalytic writing of the same time (60s) or perhaps an imitation of translated philosophical German.

All Berger's writing here (as everywhere else) is purely expository, there is no shade of argument present anywhere; if something is less than self-evident to you, that's your problem, I suppose.

While "The Invitation..." itself (first five chapters, that is) was not bad, "The Construction of Reality..." is just plain gobbledegook, purposely (I suspect) rendered incomprehensible in order to make it look profound. And even when you do -- at the cost of a huge mental effort, highlighting, paraphrazing, and drawing lines and circles on the pages -- uncover some vague semblance of a possible meaning, it invariably turns out either trivial or highly questionable.

What's interesting is that, following Berger's bibliography, I moved on to Weber, and turns out, sociology CAN be written logically, concisely, and clearly. What a pleasing surprise.

This book led me into a life of sociology as it encouraged me to pursue and complete a Ph.D. in this discipline. On my first reading as an undergraduate, this book brought together many disparate ideas I had been thinking for sometime. I recently re-read it and still find it fascinating and important. It's contributions are detailed by other reviewers, I would only add that I consider a great bulk of the post-modernist movement to be summarized, detailed and challenged in a coherent and succinct fashion here.

Ever wonder what makes us what we are as individuals? Ever wonder what makes society what it is as a whole? This book is for you! One of the main ideas here is that society is built by a group of people (a nation, a state, a political party, a family, etc.) by people but becomes a thing that is seen by people as being reified. Therefore, people look at society as if it were like a brick wall, i.e. hard, unmovable, etc.

What gets people to the point of seeing the world as a unchangeable whole, almost like nature itself? The most important answer is that we're being socialized from our first day of existence. This socialization comes from our family, friends, teachers, everyone - even the people we meet and see everyday and never think about! They tell us who we are, where we are, what we are, what we do, who they are, what everything is, etc. Its absolutely amazing to think that our view of the world is what it is mostly because of our society, but that's the idea here. Society is constantly being constructed and reconstructed, enforced and reenforced, by people all the time.

A huge part of the reason for this is institutionalization. This means that a certain type of person does certain acts, in just such a way, in the right time of their lives, with the right education level, etc. This book has so many critical things to say about the world we live in. However, best of all in my opinion, the ideas are timeless.

The topics discussed in this book have been with us since the beginning of civilization and seemingly always will be. This isn't a book about modern times, it is a book about all times.

About the book

Based on research questioning about 500 executives who took IPOs between 1986 and 1996. So, most IPOs came from companies who had been profitable for a few years. After the collapse of the Internet stocks, the context is similar, but I believe such profit records may not be as important as during 1986-96.

Published in 1999. So, it has comments to imply "being first makes the company valuable without profits".

About the authors and their style

Authors are experienced in their job of bringing IPOs.

This book is not at all in the class of books by Al Ries and Jack Trout, but more like a text book, covering every related point (from text book point of view). There is no prioritization or difference in emphasis of the importance of various issues involved.

Their diagram on cover of book is confusing because they have used 2-dimensions to show a linear 1-dimension process, which essentially are their recommended steps.

Book's Message

1. Define goal/success. IPO may not be the best way to achieve that.

2. Plan and start working on IPO at least one year ahead of the need.

3. Many specific to-do items: ·Revise salaries as variable salaries that include stocks rather than just cash. ·Plan personal estates. Give gifts before IPOs to family members to minimize future tax liability. Hire CPA for this planning. ·Hire Earnst & Young early. ·Clean books of accounts-use GAAP. ·Build strong executive team. ·Start working like a public company at least one year before-that is-create quarter-to-quarter profitability guidance and exceed them. Create reports such as needed by SEC. ·Build external Board. Create committees of Board members.

If you want to read just 7 pages, read these: 25, 37, 56, 65, 74, 108, 170

Aimed at executives considering an IPO, the 'IPO Value Journey' is also of use to staff in pre/post-IPO companies to understand about market perceptions of companies & ideal "success factors".

The lightly referenced, well structured chapters span: the CEO's journey; the journey's early vital steps; chart your transaction strategy; chart your personal strategy; create the winning team; complete your IPO platform; be the public company; the IPO event; and deliver the value. Useful appendices span: outline for a business plan; selecting the stock market; registration exemptions and resale restrictions; overview of the SEC and SEC rules and regulations; simplified registration under the small business disclosure system; and glossary.

Strengths include: the concise factual (dry) writing style; good use of exhibits and checklists; and useful easily-accessible content addressing legal, accounting, reporting, board issues (amongst others).

Weaknesses include: need for more sidebar success story anecdotes (which integrate the steps); mostly US focus; and relatively superficial analysis evidence supporting the success factors and 'journey' metaphor.

Overall, a very useful working book, to be read with something like 'Confessions of a Venture Capitalist' (ISBN 0446526800) or 'E-boys' (ISBN 0812930959), for a fuller life-cycle, energetic view of the IPO journey.

This was a highly readable discussion of the issues most companies will encounter during the 'going public' process. It conveys a lot of the experiences of preparing to go public that are not normally available in one book. Excellent coverage of strategy, accounting and reporting issues, SEC disclosure requirements, and the IPO event. Although the writing is accessible to a non technical reader, highly technical topics are well covered.

If you have read The Essential Drucker, Balanced scorecard etc. , the book essentially has the same information repeated under a different title. Recommend Essential Drucker, Balanced Score card which is more comprehensive than this title.

This collection of eight articles from the HBR is a must IF AND ONLY IF you want the only highlights of some of the new management tools and theories out there. If you've ever wondered what Activity-Based Costing (ABC) is or what Kaplan's "Balanced Scorecard" is all about, this may be just the introductory text for you. I mention these two tools first since 2 out of 8 articles deal with ABC, either in whole or in part, while another 3 deal specifically with the balanced scorecard. So, if you've got ABC and the balanced scorecard already firmly laid out in your head, this may be a bit redundant.

The remaining three articles are still worth a quick read though. I found in one article, "How the Right Measures Help Teams Excel," ideas that I hadn't seen anywhere else (for example, the team "dashboard"). And, the "How High is Your Return on Management?" article might give managers a moment of reflection on whether or not they have a good ROM and what they can do to improve it.

As I stated before, much of this is merely highlights though. Do not expect to be able to use this book as a primary source to implement any of the measures. It's a tease that gets you excited (at least it did me), but doesn't provide much of a game plan for bringing it all about.

Still, if what you want is a quick overview and a few case studies where these principles and tools have been applied, by all means, read this. It's worth at least that much.

Looking for some informative, original and clear thinking about measuring performance? This book is a great choice! This is a collection of eight outstanding articles selected from past editions of the HBR. The articles cover such subjects as activity-based costing, the use of nonfinancial criteria, and tools executives require to generate the information needed. Each article begins with an executive summary which, for the fast-forward crowd, is a big plus.

So many books are merely ONE GOOD ARTICLE embedded in a thicket of verbiage. Chopping away through such a jungle of verbosity for the gist-of-it-all often proves tedious and disappointing. (Blessed are the laconic!) This book, on the other hand, just serves up a bunch of 'gists' -the pure meat and potatoes of ideas. Happily, the HBSP has published several other collections of this sort on such topics as knowledge management, change, and strategies for growth. Each of these is collection of first-rate 'gists'. Reviewed by Gerry Stern, founder, Stern & Associates, author of Stern's Sourcefinder The Master Directory to HR and Business Management Information & Resources, Stern's CyberSpace SourceFinder, and the Compensation and Benefits SourceFinder.

Henderson's Out of Control is one of most revealing and honest books I've yet to read that documents the world of big-time NFL football, or any sport for that matter. It packs a heck of a punch by basically chronicling, in great detail, the partying and good times that were had by the 1970's Dallas Cowboys. The drugs, booze, women and carousing are all here in abundance. Of course, Henderson's athletic life is the focal point, however I found the "behind the scenes" stuff enthralling and worth the price of the book alone. Much in the tradition of Bouton's Ball Four, Out of Control takes it to another level.
The usefulness of Out of Control is its brutal honesty and fly on the wall glimpse into big time sports. Anyone who's played any level of competitive football will find Out of Control to be a magnificent read you won't be able to put down. I devoured the whole thing in two days. Henderson's assertion of covert racism regarding just who would start at linebacker was also interesting and made for great reading.
The NFL's Public Relations department won't be sponsoring Henderson's book signing tour anytime soon.

As sports biographies go, this is a very good one. I have some memories of Thomas "Hollywood" Henderson's football days but obviously never knew what was going on behind the scenes. The pattern for his abuses were set young in his life and not necessarily as a result of his fame in the NFL. Hats off to Henderson for not pulling any punches or blaming anyone for his drug problems but himself. He admitted his faults and didn't come off too preachy about his downfalls either. A most enjoyable read if you find a copy of it.

I've always enjoyed reading autobiographies where the author's not afraid to let you in on the more lurid details and the darker side of his/her life. And being a follower of pro football, Thomas 'Hollywood' Henderson's amazing memoirs of growing up in the Austin ghetto, his pro football playing days as a linebacker for the Dallas Cowboys' Doomsday II defense, and his near-self-destruction from his addictions to cocaine, painkillers, and alcohol makes 'Out of Control' a double treat for me!

With the help of sports author Peter Knobler, 'Hollywood' discusses his darker days and eventual reclamation in the plain and straightforward manner that made his reputation as one of the NFL's most colorful characters, and makes for an absorbing read. I went from cover to cover in one sitting with this one!

There are a few other interesting and outrageous moments in Henderson's life aside from his drug-and-sex binges as well. The best of these were his front-row view of the climactic Roger Staubach / Clint Longley sucker-punch in the Cowboys locker room, and checking out Richard Pryor's home porno flicks at Pryor's house during one of his infamous parties.

Whether you're a football/sports fan or just an avid reader of 'True confessions'-style biographies/memoirs, then this is one book you shouldn't miss!

'Late

In Book 1, the narrator presents to British readers German professor Diogenes Teufelsdrockh and his "Philosophy of Clothes". Book 2 describes Teufelsdrockh's childhood, education, first love, heartbreak, sad wanderings, loss and rediscovery of faith. Book 3 expands the philosophy. Only seeing through "clothes" (anything - notably rationalism -masking man's true nature as "spirit") can we understand life : education & art (flamelike, a spirit grows when kindled by another, not composted) the symbiosis of religion & society, science's limitations.Like the ramblings of a half-mad saint (sweetened by storyline only in Book 2) moments of beauty hide within thick stylistic jungle.

Humour (2) Readability (3) Characterisation (4) Structure (4)Beauty (6) Thematic unity (6) Literary style (6) Profundity (7) Significance (7)

Rating 50%

From the correspondance of T.H. Huxley:

"...when I look back, what do I find to have been the agents of my redemption? The hope of immortality or of future reward? I can honestly say that for these fourteen years such a consideration has not entered my head. No, I can tell you exactly what has been at work. Sartor Resartus led me to know that a deep sense of religion was compatible with the entire absence of theology. Secondly, science and her methods gave me a resting-place independent of authority and tradition. Thirdly, love opened up to me a view of the sanctity of human nature, and impressed me with a deep sense of responsibility."

I couldn't put it better. This is one of the books that makes life worth living.

This is a powerful and profound book and even sort of funny (a professor of everything... c'mon!!!)

This is a difficult book. It has small print and is written in the sort of stilted style that one would expect for a book with a Latin name written by a Scot more than a century ago. Carlyle was one of the most brilliant men of his time and in this book you can see hints of Goethe and Novalis and the other German romantic types..... which makes it sort of worthwhile....

But this was a really tough book for me to get through. Normally, I can plow through about anything.... but this took an awful lot of work....

I recommend it, though, with that qualification.... it is one of the "best" books ever written....!

This legend is a great way to start talking to students about the Mayan people of long ago. The illustrations are bright and interesting. The pictures could start a discussion! The message about a jealous uncle and a kings passing could be compared to the Lion King if you are comparing legends.

I bought this book for my Guatemalan born son and can't wait until he's old enough to read it to him. The illustrations are quite beautiful. It troubles me a bit that the story is violent with the evil uncle plotting against his nephew - but at the same time it's the same plot as the Lion King, only with a different ending. Nevertheless I would say this is a story for five-year olds and above.

This is a great book if you teach native american history and culture. Especially if you teach about native american tribes that existed in Mexico and Central America. The book does a great job of portraying Maya life/culture. It tells the story a Mayan prince who receives a visit from a sacred bird when he is born. The sacred bird leaves a feather as a present for this newborn prince. From this day on the prince carries the feather with him for good luck and fortune. The feather protects him of all evil or from being hurt, he is basically invincible. His people love this prince because he protects them. But there is a Mayan warrior who is jealous of the prince. His envy makes him steal this feather from the prince, the prince then dies in a battle. But the Mayan people still believe that this prince protects over them in a mysterious way.