John Ozoga is a true naturalist, showing a love for both the whitetail deer and nature as a whole.

His photographs are the highlight of the entire series, but the information and background are excellent, as well. This series is a must for not only whitetail hunters, but nature enthusaists as well.

The two biggest swipes on White Noise seem to be: (1) there is no plot and; (2) the characters (esp. the children) don`t ring true.

The first challenge is simply outlandish. If we define plot in the simpilist way, then its easy to say what this book is about. Its about death, first and foremost. But on a more superficial, back cover blurb basis, its about a chemical spill and how the average disfunctional american family deals with it. Yes, along the way, Delillo turns the focus towards pop culture. Yes, he writes about things in an interesting manner. But this is literature. Just because a book is deeply symbolic and attempts to approach a reading of the zeitgeist doesn`t make it plotless.

Second, the characters. Yes, the children are the wisecracking, insight driven creatures who seem to outsmart their parents half the time. Some reviewers have claimed that this is cliched. I would argue that it is no more cliched than presenting children as mindless drones whose worries and aspirations must be filtered through adult experiences. Moreover, the children react in entirely childlike ways to the main events of the book. Denise gets sick and Stephie follows suit. Heinrich, like many young boys, is seduced by the chaos. While I understand more acutely the roots of this line of criticism, I have to argue it too is misplaced. Delillo portrays with remarkable precision the cognomen of the adolescent in a hyper consumer, hyper wise society.

Perhaps I spend a lot of time reading plotless books, but White Noise has the momentum of an airport bookstore thriller. And for my money, Don Delillo is the most interesting writer in America right now. His descriptive prowess is unprecedented and his language is perfect. And White Noise is his best book.

A biting, satirical look at the hyper-consumerist,wave-radiating, static-filled, information overloaded, chemically suffused predicament of American family life, where even something as elemental as the fear of death has been reduced to a drug treatable medical condition. A society so benumbed by plastic technology that reality - a noxius chemical cloud billowing over the city - is treated as a simulated "airborne toxic event"! Here children are desensitised to childhood wonders and fight for larger causes, while adults live in constant dread of the bogeyman of mortality. In such a world some, like college lecturer Murray, invert the natural order of things: they find existential meaning and deep spirituality in the icons of American pop-culture and brand consumerism. DeLillo's post-modernist take on contemperory living makes the whole novel run very much like a television show. Background radio noise, product-placement ads, sports commentary, sit-com dialogue all intrude into the narrative at awkward moments, leaving a subliminal buzz in the reader. This, I suppose, is the white noise of the title, but DeLillo has made some kind of music out of it.

This book was introduced a few months ago to me in an American Lit class and I've been looking for Delillo books ever since. The title points to the mass media bombardment that this family goes through as they try to live their consumer driven lives. Jack teaches Hitler Studies and as the preeminent scholar in the field (he pretty much built it as a discipline) he is haunted by his own inadequacies as both a family figure and a teacher. The fact that he doesn't know German becomes a huge insecurity.

His family is completely disfunctional--A wife that combats her own morbid fears, a daughter that searches for some way to experience things by repeatedly burning her morning toast, and a nihilist pre-pubescent son who contrives ways of disbelieving everything the family structure tells him. Delillo shows how media has become the standard by which this family lives its life through a terrible tragedy and how the community feeds off of its own fears. I love this book and have found Delillo, along with others such as Stephen Wright, to be hitting the nail directly on the head when it comes to what life has become for most people in America.

Stephen Hawking's life and his research in cosmology are fascinating and based on that alone I enjoyed this book. However, the book is poorly written and lacks depth. It lacks any detailed description of Stephen Hawking's work and doesn't provide any true insight into his life or character. For example, the authors repeatedly inform us of what an overpowering presence Stephen Hawking has but they never provide any evidence of this. Good writers show you what they mean - they don't just repeatedly tell you.

This book seems to based on no actual contact with Stephen or Jane Hawking or any of his colleagues. It seems that the authors read "A Brief History of Time," read a couple of articles, and then decided to write a biography. It definitely comes up short.

I am an enormous fan of Stephen Hawking, his achievements in physics are incredible and his ability to overcome his illness demonstrates how sturdy the human mind can be. He is touted in the book as the greatest mind since Einstein, which is a claim I also recently read concerning Richard Feynman. I have no opinion on this, as I hold them both in very high regard. To me such debates are silly, as ranking such people is so subjective that it is meaningless and wasteful.
That aside, I generally enjoyed the book, finding the explanations of the physics a little too simplistic for my tastes, but certainly within the realm of the general reader. My only real criticism is that there was too much ink spent on some of the minutiae of his life. Even Hawking probably objects to some of the details about his life that appear. However, I was pleased to read that he can be temperamental and shows his anger by running over a person's foot with his wheelchair. It just makes him sound that much more human.
This is a good biography of a great man, who lets nothing get in his way. An inspiration who probably does not want the role in any capacity other than as a physicist, he has revolutionized cosmology and it will be a minimum of decades before all the consequences of his work will be known.

Well, this book is about the biography of one of the genius of our time. But unfortunately, is not the biography that one waited. It was possibly written with the purpose of making money: because I think that what is written on Stephen, is sold at once. The book dedicates a chapter to explain the scientific developments, and the following one dedicates it to speak of Stephen, and so forth until the end. Finished the book, one doesn't know if it was bought a divulgation book or a biography. As divulgation book it is too limited, and how biography, it leaves to a side the spiritual content of a man born for the science. In total, an incomplete book. If you feel passion for the science, as me, you won't like this book.

But not everything is bad. If you are not informed of anything of the development of the science of this century, at least until some years ago, this is a good book for you, because on it you will find a small biography of one of the biggest scientific personalities in the XX century, and at the same time you will be able to find out topics so dark as those of the general relativity, singularities, black holes and something of quantum mechanics, in a simple, and easy language. You are the only one that, in definitive, knows as being located in front of the book.

John Dean has written a readable retelling of the appointment politics surrounding William Rehnquist, then Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court and since 1986 Chief Justice of the United States. Those who have read about the Court avidly or extensively will not find much here that is new, but that tends to validate what Dean says. Those who knew little about President Nixon or the politics of appointments in the Nixon Era will find more than a few fascinating stories.

Mr. Dean was a lawyer working in the White House. Thus, he was privy to many of the machinations of the Nixon Administration. If Mr. Dean is liable to be suspected of repenting or exaggerating his role, he may be at least presumed to be an authority.

One of Mr. Dean's overarching points is that Mr. Rehnquist was appointed to the Court nearly accidentally. The naive reader will be startled to see how little thought went into the selection, how late in the process that thought came about, and how few second thoughts were lavished on the selection once it was made.

In addition, the reader will be amused by the cavalier banter that passed for analysis between Nixon and his various sounding boards. Dean has reproduced dialogue from the White House tapes, so the quotations appear to be authoritative.

The "might have beens" are too delicious to spoil in this review. Dean deftly introduces each possibility with a capsule description so that readers who did not pay much attention in 1971 may appreciate who was who.

No one should be surprised to read that Nixon was prejudiced against blacks, Jews, and women, but the vehemence with which Nixon spews stereotypes startles even thirty years later.

Dean concludes that Rehnquist, in 1971 and 1986, fibbed his way thorough difficulties. The splendid irony that the fellow who presided over Clinton's trial in the Senate in 1999 had perjured himself onto the Court and into the Chief Justiceship is hardly news. To believe Rehnquist's denials concerning challenging minority voters in Arizona in the 1960s or concerning his memorandum urging the justices to uphold "separate but equal" as good law required muscular denial. [Dean does not raise the matter of the restrictive covenant on Rehnquist's property.] Those familiar with these issues will find very little new. However, those new to the matter will find in the "Afterword" a concise but articulate discussion of why Rehnquist's denials were unbelievable.

What readers may not gather from Dean's prose, however, is that, in a roundabout way, the system worked. Stymied by the American Bar Association [which found Nixon's first few candidates to be unqualified or unimpressive] and stung by mass media attacks on Nixon's attempts to appoint mediocrities, Nixon felt compelled to go for a little stature with predictable ideology. Rehnquist was a predictable conservative. He was also many cuts above the sorts of people with whom Nixon wanted to saddle the Court.

John Dean has written an insider's book that chronicles President Richard Nixon's appointment of William Rehnquist to the United States Supreme Court. It was without doubt a Presidency filled with history, and the appointment of William Rehnquist to the Supreme Court is an often forgotten part of that Presidency. The book is well researched and throughly documented with first hand material from the National Archives, including several verbatim passages transcribed from the infamous White House tapes that otherwise doomed the Nixon Presidency.

Dean brings us inside the "vetting" process used by the White House staff and Justice Department to select nominees to the Court. Dean floated the name of Rehnquist to several in the administration, including then Attorney General John Mitchell, as a possible conservative candidate for the Court as Dean had worked with Rehnquist in the Justice Department and learned of the Rehnquist's strict constructionist interpretation of the constitution. What was fascinating was that Rehnquist while toiling away at the Justice Department was tasked with "vetting' the other possible Court nominees chosen by the White House. Sounds much like the recent scenario of the selection of Dick Cheney as Vice President.

The book details the other nominees Rehnquist beat out for the coveted position. If anyone believes that politics plays no part in the selection of the members of the Court, then this is required reading. At times humorous and at times self-serving, this book is well worth the purchase. If you are not a Court watcher don't worry, you don't have to be to appreciate this book. Dean is a good writer and the text flows easily. Add "The Rehnquist Choice" to your summer reading list - you will gain an appreciation of the importance of Presidential nominations to the Court.

Only in the last couple of years have all the tapes of Nixon's many conversations as President in the White House been released. The tragedy of Richard Nixon is that every time someone wants to think well of him, tapes or something else surfaces that shows his real unpleasant, dark, and unsavory character.

John Dean waited for the release of these tapes and along with his personal recollections during the time period has written a book that deals with the selection of Rehnquist and Lewis Powell as United States Supreme Court Justices. Its not pleasant reading for those naive enough to believe that Presidents seek out the most qualified people for appointments. Rather, the book exposes the process used by President Nixon to select two supreme court justices as frought with politics, bigotry, and regionalism. Nixon's bigotry about Jews, prejudice against easterners, and nasty language make this a book that someone who is very sensitive should not read.

The real shocker here is that before picking Powell who was a superbly qualified justice, Nixon first selected two candidates who could not even win acceptance as "qualified" for the Supreme Court by the American Bar Association Committee on the Federal Judiciary. Nixon stubbornly tried to get these individuals appointed until it became absolutely clear it was hopeless. Only at this point, did a real candidate like Powell get nominated. Nixon further abused the process by sending names to the ABA of other people he knew would never win approval.

Rehnquist had good paper qualifications to sit on the Supreme Court. However, it was known early on he was extremely conservative. He may have lied about statements he allegedly made expressing approval of racial segregation in schools. Dean presents the case for this. Its up to the reader to judge.

In the end, we are left gasping at the twisted and bizarre process which put Rehnquist on the Supreme Court. Even those who support Rehnquist and other conservative justices should wish for a better process to select judges. Hopefully, one day we shall see such a process and never see another President like Nixon again.

Mark

I have just finished this third art of the Elric Saga, given to me for free by a friend that loves fantasy as much as I do. I've reviewed each as I finished them. You can read the other reviews if you'd like, by clicking on my name. I must warn you they are not pretty, and I am loosing patience with the series.

I caution those of you that are not fans of the other books, this read may not be worth your while. This is the worst of the lot so far, and that's saying a bit. The first tale was weighted down with many, many, literary albatrosses, and the second, while lightening a little on the cheesy fantasy rhetoric, and actually taking some interesting twists, continued the insulting trend of revealing too much of future plots, and then taking to long to get to the fufilment of these dropped hints of prophecy. This third book totally trashes any progress made by the second, and gives birth to a few defects in the main character that are unforgivably preposterous given his earlier actions.

First we are given the unattached (yet relevant, Moorcock hastens to inform us,) tale of Aubic carving lands from chaos, then we are given the ridiculous conclusion of Elric's tale involving his cousin yrkroon (or some such ridiculous name.) For those not in the know, Elric is almost murdered by his cousin for his throne, and returned from near death to topple his foe in the first tale, only to willingly relinquish his throne at the end to this same traitor, saying essentially that the playing field was level once more. Now he's returning for "revenge" (Revenge? For What? Gee, I gave you my throne, and now I don't wnat it back, but I will kill you for accepting my offer. By making elric not care about his throne at the end of the first book, the author diffuses the need for any "revenge" here in the third, and this makes any motivation for vengance, and actions that follow from it, non-sequitors.) Anyhow, we must put that aside, for Elric , rightfully or no, does desire revenge, so in a singularly bold move, Elric decides to destroy his own homeland in a thirst for blood and vengance. In the process he kills his only love, which he really didn't care about anyway. But in any case, he acts shocked, although her death could hardly have been a suprise, he should have known it was coming, because he himself (in the guise of his future self, Erikose,) told him (Elric) he would kill the woman he loved. Or are we to believe that Elric is as silly as Moorcock thinks his readers are? In any case, perhaps you should put that aside as well. In the flight from his city, as his troops are routed, he betrays his companions in a feat of totally uncharacteristic, and therefore unbelievable, cowardice. (Elric earlier alligned himself with three or four guys he met on a boat and had no real allegiance to, and fought a pair of otherworldly sorcerers for no real reason at all, in that case many of his companions died, and Elric had as much chance to fear for his life then as he does during the rout of his forces, yet now he flees where before he stood fast? I don't think so. Get some constancy in your character, he's a man who will stand, or one who will flee.)

Anyhow, put all of that aside too. After this fiasco, Elric goes out in search of his never outlined Destiny, (That's what "Weird" means in the title, you know. It's not just alliterative, or maybe it is...,) which seams to simply be Elric wandering around becoming not-involved with various women he can never love, and adventures he doesn't care to resolve or has no motivation to begin, yet he does anyhow, and attempting to kill various conjured things and failing and then calling on his gaurdian for help, and sometimes getting it, sometimes not, but always Elric gets hints and etc dropped his way from his pet god, about his greater bolder destiny. Well get to it I say! We're what, three books in an no word of it? How long must we suffer this tripelike filler to reach the meat of the tale?

Ah well, suffice it to say that this third book is simply awful, and only true Elric fans could find anything redeeming about it. With some great reluctance, I will start on the fourth book.

I must say that Elric of Melnibone is one of the most tiresome heroes or even antiheroes I have ever come across...his self-pity, fatalism and incessant whining and angst are easy to identify with, but can also be quite heavy-going...this is not to say that this book is bad, it is exceedingly well written, and Elric is an interesting character, i like the emphasis on his demon origins and natural ancestral cruelty especially...I liked this book better than the Sailor on the Seas of Fate, though both that one and Weird of the White Wolf are a bit disjointed since it was originally a number of stories written by Michael Moorcock for fantasy magazines. I think i liked the first book the best, because I loved the vivid portrait he painted of the ancient, decadent Island of Melnibone, with their pre-human inhabitants and elaborate, cruel pleasures...they were evil all right, and you knew they were doomed as a race, but they certainly had style. I was very disappointed that Imrhyrr fell in the Weird of the White Wolf...I felt a great civilisation and era were gone forever. The humans just dont seem as interesting...too clumsy. As for Elric, I believe the tragedy of him is that he is the main source of his misery and undoing...Watching him go down is almost painfully annoying...you want to shout at him or something to stop being such a fool. Its also is a bit boring and monotonous hearing his constant whining, but it somehow makes it even more tragic. He knows he's doomed and yet he doesnt quite have the courage to commit suicide and end it all. His indecision defeats him. He's sort of like Hamlet that way. All in all its a great read...Michael Moorcock is a fantastic writer. I sometimes read him just for the great descriptions

Michael Moorcock, The Weird of the White Wolf (DAW, 1977)

The third book in the Elric series introduces the reader to Moonglum, Elric's longtime companion (and, thanks to AD&D's Deities and Demigods book, the companion most readers can't imagine him without). Much of the second novel moved away from the events of the first, and concentrated Elric's character on other adventures. The Weird of the White Wolf brings Elric back to Melnibonë along with Moonglum, their friend Smiorgan Baldhead, and an army of raiders bent on overthrowing Yyrkoon, who stole the throne when Elric left Melnibonë for a year to travel the world. For those wondering, whether you've read the book or not: the "weird" of the title is an archaic definition of the term, given by Merriam Webster as "One's assigned lot or fortune, especially when evil." And when he finds it, he's not all that happy about it. But that's to be expected when one's antihero has a crisis of conscience, I guess.

Certainly not a slow book by any means, nor a weak one in the context of the series. And it's definitely a necessity as a prelude to what comes after it. But I still felt there was something missing here; some pieces of description left out, a few places where things could have been filled in better. All of the Elric novels are short, to say the least (Stormbringer, the last and longest of them, clocks in a 217pp.), and feel as if they could use some fleshing out; this one, however, gives that feeling the most. One wonders if the brevity of them was not the insistence of the publisher, and what Moorcock would do with them, given the opportunity (a la King's unexpurgated edition of The Stand). Loads of fun, and highly recommended for fantasy and non-fantasy readers alike, as is the whole series. ****

Nixon will always take the blame for the dishonorable acts of Dean. Read silent Coupe for the most likely truth here.

This story is quite interesting. When I first read it, during the 1970s, I bought Mr. Dean's version of events hook, line and sinker -- and boy did he suck me in. He postured himself as someone involved way over his head who ended up being, in effect, a victim. I have concluded that some of the presented details are true, and some are not. The presentation, however, is uniformly riveting.

Read additional Watergate material for a broader view and better picture. The lesson here is that you can't always believe the story which appears, at first glance, to be the most convincing.

I've never learned so much about the unseen world of politics as I have in this one book. George Stephanopolous' book pales in comparison to the amount of insight this book reveals. It's something we've known all along about government - just put into straightforward terms that everyone can understand. None of that NewSpeak politics that we hear about in the mainstream press, that limit our range of thought.

Anyone who gives this book a bad ranking is a government operative, seeking to hide information from the populace.

*A*

First of all the abduction in the movie is nothing like the book, what was that about. The most interesting part of the book was of course the abduction but only two short chapters are about the abduction. The rest of the book was quite boring. There was no dialog with the extraterrestrials, we didn't find out that the hell they wanted, no message, no nothing. Your better off watching the movie and reading the two short chapters in the book about the abduction. Very intersting if the story really is true but you don't find out too much in this book.

Along with Betty and Barney Hill's story, the Rozwell incident, and the Area 51-Bob Lazar stuff Travis Walton's intriquing experience makes for some pupil-dilating, pulse-quickening occult reading. If it's science fiction, it leaves "2001", "Star Wars", "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", "Hangar 18" and all the rest of them in the dust. If it's not...what is it? Did Travis tap into another level of reality? Or did he expose himself to a *natural* phenomena which electrocuted him, and caused him to wander around the Arizona woods in a semi-conscious state where his dream chemistry took over his brain for awhile?
Travis uses alot of space (printed page space, that is) to try to convince us that although he has a definite history of risk-taking and has a super inquisitive mind, he does not have the fertile imagination or the inclination to cook up such a story. He dispenses plenty of sentences in a defensive stance against the criticisms of folks such as Philip Klass, the noted UFO debunker. The final chapter is a tedious counterpoint to Klass' summation of the situation as...bunk.
The most interesting is Chapter 8, "The Aliens". It is absolutely fascinating; finely written. But it is revealed that these details originated in a question and answer hypnosis session.
That transcript, along with the actual interviews with his friends who claim they all witnessed the mysterious object's effect on Travis, is also not provided, and this technique (used effectively in Fuller's "The Interrupted Journey") makes up in riveting "realism" what it loses in literary quality.
On one TV documentary about fifteen years ago Walton came across as a very down-to-earth (pause) individual who sincerely wants the world to know that *something* happened to him in '75, and he's got many witnesses to that fact. He conveyed his message briefly and convincingly. Here we have a 170-page book running at 370 pages!
By the way, the color artwork is attractive.

There is no question that this is the real thing. I am not happy with the pictures, but much of what Walton says particularly his description of the aliens rings true. For those who want only the information on his abduction experience you might be disappointed, it is good but much of the book is about his and his crewmembers experiences resulting from the abduction. However, the story of an abduction only begins with the event. What happens afterward is often has more effect than the aliens. Read it all particularly if you suspect or know that you may have had a similar experience. What tipped me off, even though it rang true from the start, is his description of the aliens' skin, chalky white. The big aliens, unlike the little grays, have chalky white skin. Like the one that did a brain scan on me. However even though you are not into this kind of thing it makes exciting and revealing reading.

The Flying Fisherman. (about.com.UFO's and aliens)

I read this "biography" years ago, and while I would agree that Schlesinger is a fine writer, I completely disagree with the views of several of the posters here...in fact, I find their reasoning for liking this book to be rather "odd". Both posters agree that Schlesinger is terribly biased (he literally fawns over JFK, and has spent his entire career since the sixties as a Kennedy flack). They also agree that he constantly injects himself into what is supposed to be a "biography" of John F. Kennedy, not a biography of Arthur Schlesinger (he's working on that at the present), and that he (Schlesinger) greatly overstates his own role in the events of the JFK era. Yet, these posters still insist that this book offers "valuable" insights into the Kennedy Presidency. Given this book's flaws, I find that to be a dubious assertion. To be considered an accurate portrait of the leader it studies, a biography should as objective, impartial, and fair-minded as possible. "A Thousand Days", however well-written, actually belongs to the mid-sixties wave of Kennedy "nostalgia" books which were rushed into print by Kennedy's former aides and supporters in the wake of the assassination. Today these books are referred to by most historians as the "court histories", because they overlook any flaws in JFK's Presidency and immortalize the man (and, as a more objective reviewer noted, the "Camelot" myth owes a great debt to this book). This book's defenders should read Gore Vidal's hilarious piece entitled "The Holy Family" in a 1967 issue of "Esquire" magazine. Vidal, the famed novelist, is a distant relative of Jackie Kennedy, yet this didn't stop him from referring to "A Thousand Days" as the "best political novel since Coningsby", and to the "court histories" books by Arthur Schlesinger and other Kennedy aides as "the Gospel according to Arthur, Paul, Pierre...and several minor apostles". And that assessment aptly sums up "A Thousand Days" - as a hagiography or publicity piece (for Schlesinger and JFK) it's marvelous. But as accurate, objective, and fair-minded history it's hopeless. In my opinion, the best book written to date on Kennedy's brief Presidency is Richard Reeves's "President Kennedy: Profile of Power". It shows JFK as he really was - warts and all - without the embarrassing sentimentality, biased reporting, and rose-colored glasses of Schlesinger and other Kennedy family flacks. Bottom line: if you read "A Thousand Days" be prepared for some excellent writing and moving passages, but please remember that what you're reading comes closer to historical fiction than historical fact.

Before I type anything else, I will dispense with the obvious: this book is so pro- Kennedy that it makes people angry. The author hero worshipped the Kennedys, a fact that is not well hidden in any of his books. He also does quite a bit of name dropping, and he overplays his own importance in key events. No one denies this. In some of the reviews of this book, one can almost feel the flecks of spit coming from the mouths of the reviewer. I mean no offense with that remark, but I find it humorous that people can get so worked up about the Camelot myth.
Despite the bias, A Thousand Days is a valuable insight into the Kennedy administration. As one critic said: "the president walks through the pages, from first to last, alert, alive, amused and amusing." The way the members of the administration come alive in this book has been unequaled in any other book on the Kennedys. On top of that, it is incredibly well written, and very detailed. It is not the only book one should read on the Kennedys, but it should not be overlooked either.

This book has won a Pullitzer and National Book Award for good reason. Unlike most political biographers, Schlesinger provides a detailed and interesting analysis of his subject's policy decisions. We don't get a detailed accounting of what Kennedy has for breakfast, but we do get an understanding of Kennedy's decision making process and how it related to the numerous issues with which he was confronted.

Many of the customer reviewers criticized Schlesinger for his bias in Thousand Days. It is true that nothing that Kennedy does in Thousand Days is wrong, and nothing that Eisenhower did was right. In the 1030 pages of Thousand Days, the reader is hardpressed to find a single critical comment about Kennedy. There are certainly plenty of excuses, as well as repetitive references to the "seeds" of legislative programs sown by Kennedy that would inevitably (as implied by Schlesinger) revolutionized the US. However, Schlesinger did not attempt to hide this bias -- he was obviously star struck by the Kennedys and did not purport to give the Republican perspective on the Kennedy administration. In essence, the "bias" is so obvious it is easy to single it out and focus on what Schlesinger has to offer -- a studied and very inspiring first hand account of a presidential term from one of this country's leading historians.

I have read several dozen presidential biographies and can say that none have provided so much insight into presidential decision making. In a word, this book is "dense", full of ideas, theories and speculation about the workings of the executive branch when confronted with some of the greatest challenges of our time -- including the cold war, the Cuban missile crises, Bay of Pigs, civil rights and Vietnam. What's more, it was an absorbing and thought provoking read. A little more critical analysis of Kennedy may have been more illuminating, but this type of analysis may well have robbed Thousand Days of the passion that makes it so interesting and inspiring. Kennedy, after all, was an interesting and inspiring president. Perhaps the most effective way to portray the man, therefore, is with a biography that is interesting and inspiring.

His old man, Norman Podhoretz, is nothing but an intellectual thug, and his son has not strayed far from the trunk of this polluted tree. I would shun all Podhoretzes -- including the mom, Midge Decter. Perhaps we can send them back to Galicia.

Finding books about the first Bush Presidency is not that easy so when I came upon this one I gave it a shot. I knew that the author is a conservative columnist so I was expecting a rather right leaning account, but I was wrong. Either Bush put the authors wife in jail, took away his kids or killed his dog because the level of dislike he has from all things Bush is really something. Reading this book was like watching a boxing match were one guy just keeps getting hit, the author kept the zingers coming from everything from domestic policy issues to haircuts.

The book is not a all encompassing overview of the Bush years. It is an interesting and well written account of an inside the administration view from that second or third tear seats. The author found smart and funny comments on all topics and never were there dull spots in the book. Overall the book is great, my only complaint was that it was not longer.

"Hell of a Ride" may not, from the standpoint of history, be the equivalent of Henry Kissinger's memoirs. But it's still, for my money, one of the most useful, insightful, and entertaining looks at the political and psychological makeup of the Bush (41) White House.

Podhoretz is especially good on the tensions between the true-blue Reaganite holdovers and the "moderate," "pragmatic" Bushies -- tensions that not only tore at the Bush presidency but at the GOP as a whole. 41 himself emerges as a man who was, if anything, too nice a guy for the presidency. His insistence, post-election, that OEOB staffers take down a large sign declaring (prophetically?) "We'll be back!" so as not to display "poor sportsmanship" is a fascinating contrast, viewed a decade later, with the GAO's evidence of vandalism carried out by departing Clinton staffers.

Podhoretz writes with flair, energy, and a good eye for both politics and comedy. Go ahead and read Baker and Scowcroft for the nitty-gritty. Podhoretz has the atmosphere.

I resisted picking up a copy of Mage Revised even though I believe the Mage system is the best one in the World of Darkness. Mage 2nd Edition was so complete and well written that I didn't feel there was a need to get another main source book. What could White Wolf possibly do to improve on a book that was already so perfect? In an effort to keep up to date with the game I ordered a copy of Mage Revised and sat down with it.

Let's start off with some good things I found in the book. Much like Vampire Revised, the book was well written and a lot of the systems have been cleaned up. The Traditions each got a few more pages worth of descriptions, which was great. Each one had numerous subdivisions and they were discussed briefly, but concisely. There were a few changes in each Tradition but overall they remained the same. The magic systems were reworked extensively. The description of the spheres was detailed and easy to follow, for the most part. Most of the spheres remained the same with minor changes here and there. A lot of the more devastating effects have been toned down. Magical effects can be fine tuned by the mage by dividing successes on duration and effect intensities. Finally, the Technocratic Union was not painted as the antagonist. I felt this was a good move since it is really up to the storyteller and players to decide whom the antagonists are. Yes they can still be used as the monolithic [enemy] but the gray areas of good and bad have grown to encompass them.

Despite the many positive points used primarily to balance out Mages with the other denizens of the World of Darkness, there were also many problems with the book. One of the largest flaws was the lack of treatment of the Technocracy. The Technocracy had won the Ascension War but we got only two pages about it. Players and Storytellers will have to acquire the Guide to the Technocracy to flesh out this major faction of PC-compatible mages. Another large omission was information on the Umbra, Paradox Spirits, and Umbrood in general. This lack of information makes the Spirit sphere and possibly the Dreamspeakers somewhat PC-unfriendly. The metaplot had taken a front seat of the game. There was some dimensional storm that made piercing the Gauntlet dangerous and difficult, another blow to the Spirit Sphere. Most of the archmagi have been killed when the dimensional storm hit, which left most of the younger mages on Earth to fend for themselves with little experienced training. Doissetep and Concordia have been destroyed, but there was no information on exactly how these powerful strongholds went under. There was also the mention of some weird red star in the Umbra. I noticed this was mentioned in the Guide to the Technocracy, as well but there was little elaboration. Talismans and Devices were mentioned in the book but there was no information on how to make them.

Almost all of the omissions I mentioned above were discussed in depth in Mage 2nd Edition. Though the discussions were brief, they provided enough information for you to make up the rest of the information as you see fit. There was also less of a reliance on the metaplot, thus encouraging storytellers to weave any type of story they deemed appropriate. Though you can still do that, the metaplot has influenced many aspects of the game.

So is this book worthy of purchase? The answer is maybe. If you have Mage 2nd Edition, you probably don't need this book to run a good game. You can find a lot of the Revised systems in other core source books. If you are new to Mage than I strongly suggest you don't get this book unless you plan to purchase Guide to the Technocracy and the Book of the Worlds or the Infinite Tapestry. Get Mage 2nd Edition instead. So who should really consider getting this book? I would say people who want to keep up to date with the game and those who already have Mage 2nd Edition. Though a lot of the information was not new, I saw it more as an update to the existing system rather than a full replacement for 2nd Edition. It serves as an additional reference to the rules, which should clear up the sections that were unclear in 2nd Edition. Mage Revised wasn't a bad purchase for me because I had all of the supplements that adequately filled in all of the omitted information. But new storytellers should be aware that games that are run with only Mage Revised will be mostly limited to street-level survival games.

I somewhat disagree with the other posts by the "veterans", however that could be because this was the first Mage book I began on. I mean, yes, I disagree with the fact that some story elements are missing, Mood and the Example Of Play section for example leaves you kind of lost.Call me Technocratic, but I feel that the Paradox system is efficient, and the read overall isn't as confusing as most players can rumor it to be. "It's like rolling dice to a freakin' VCR manual!" I got the substance out of this book, but the actual purpose of a Mage after the Ascension War is still hazy to me...Which actually leaves a player with more reason to become an Ecstatic. Whatever, though. Being the die-hard White Wolf fan that I am, I'm satisfied enough with the Revised publication.

Until I got this book, I was a lifelong D&D player. The d20 system is great, but one of its weaknesses is having too many options and not enough opportunities to use those options. What's the use of having lists of skills and feats a mile long if you only have an extremely limited number of skill slots and feat slots to spend? Enter the White Wolf system of rules. Without classes and levels, you're free to develop a set of strengths and weaknesses which make your character truly unique.

Now this can probably be said about any WW game, but I like mage for the genre: present-day to near-future. As a sci-fi and cyberpunk fan, mage meets and exceeds all my expectations of what the genre should be. It's tough, gritty and dark, but the world gives your characters a chance to make a difference. Anyone who wants a mix of magic and modern culture should give this game a try.