The majority of the discussion in this book revolves around the history of Hollywood. It repeats itself often discussing the McCarthy Era and how it affected Hollywood. It also provides useless lists of big names in Hollywood. If you are any kind of movie lover you already know the works of Spielberg and Lucas and how the McCarthy Era affected cinema.

The book also promised to provide an in-depth look at the process of making films. The concepts were provided however, they were not given in-depth. Lists of movies were provided to illustrate the concepts in the book. However, if I had wanted a list of movies to watch, I would have found one on the net.

Basically this book is a waste of money to anyone that has a basic understanding of Hollywood and show business.

A great introduction to the entire world of film -- not just Hollywood, but a host of world cinemas from European to Latin American to African and Near Eastern. The examples used are well explained and are always pertinent to the points at hand. My favorite chapters were one on film theory (which made obscure concepts accessible to the beginner) and one that used all the concepts introduced in the book to explain the German silent film "Nosferatu." I had just seen the new movie "Shadow of the Vampire," which is based on the making of "Nosferatu"; this book made me understand for the first time what a complex piece of art that early movie is. I highly recommend this book as an affordable intro to film criticism that, while accessible and fun to read, does not talk down to its audience.

Kenneth William wrote a series of five books on Ulysses S. Grant in the 1950's. He died before he could complete his supposedly "definitive treatment" of Grant the general. Williams' books are well-researched and you will find few factual gaffes. However, his writing style is often torturous and his passion for meaningless minutiae will probably drive you crazy. He excels in listing every detail of a battle until you're shaking your head or holding it as you reach for the aspirin bottle.

Williams' reverence for Grant is evident throughout. He is also peculiarly defensive about the issue of Grant's occasional over-indulgence in whiskey and in his footnotes he becomes almost hysterical on this topic. This type of hagiography is misplaced in a serious work and seriously undermines the credibility of the work. William's five volumes have been pretty much forgotten in the modern era and for good reason. He tells the reader almost nothing about Grant as a human being, his private life (pivotal in Grant's story) is regally ignored throughout.

If you are interested in examining Grant as a general, opt for the much superior books by J.F.C. Fuller, available on Amazon. This is a lifeless and boring treatment of a highly complex and fascinating man.

I think the book is better than the other review gave it credit for. I will agree that he does go out of his way to discredit Grant's drinking. But on the whole these are pretty informative books not as dry as the other review says they are. The two new editions by the University of Nebraska Press have great introductions by Grimsley and Simpson. Simpson gives more credit to Williams than the review here gives. These introductions are excellent. But the volumes are not always about Grant. The Kentucky Invasion is covered in the second volume as is the battle of Murfreesboro. I recommend these books to anyone interested in Grant and/or the Western Theater of the Civil War.

The critic's review of this book is rather depressing when one considers what happened when Francis Ford Coppola's Zoetrope Productions hired Richard Farnsworth to play the title role in the early 1980s film, The Grey Fox. The film was brilliant from beginning to end as are most of Farnsworth's films. Also, in the film, there is no mention of a gay lifestyle though back in the early 1980s, that was more taboo than today. Find the video and enjoy the story.

John Boessnecker (with the help of Mark Dugan) continues his exploration of the California and Old West outlaw/lauwman history. With works like this one and With Badges and Bullets, and Gold Dust and Gunsmoke he is rapidly taking his place as one the important chroniclers of outlaw/lawman history during this period. Like his numerous other books, this one is both attractive and satifisfactory to scholars because of its properly researched and amply footnoted text and to buffs and interested readers because of its sprightly, generously illustrated and beautifully presented text.

This pricy but slim volume (126 actual pages of text and photos), is written like a freshman essay. There are facts, but little that illuminates or gives insight into this unusual personality who founded the silver industry in Taxco. It is neither insightful or clever and a biography must have one of these characteristics. Much research seems to have been done, but with little result.

Don Guillermo, as he was known in Taxco, was an American architect who came upon an impoverished if beautiful Mexican village in the mountains of the state of Guerrero. Stimulated by financial desperation and a challenge from a friend, he hired a silversmith from nearby Iguala and kicked off the renaissance of Mexican silverwork- initially from a table in his house, and ultimately a large workshop turning out exemplary tin, copper, weaving, furniture and, of course, silver. Almost all the smiths who carried out the Taxco tradition were trained in the Spratling workshop.

This eminently readable book tells the tale, though it is certainly not one of those comprehensive 600-page biographies, nor does it become overly speculative about a man who was respected and loved for his creativity and for giving impulse to a craft that made the community relatively wealthy, but also made some mistakes and enemies. (Yep, he was special, and very human!) That is, in my opinion, part of its charm.

This book is a bit topical, yet it manages to convey the excitement of the resurrection of a Mexican village that became an entrepot of artists, writers and would-be revolutionaries, and- for good and for bad- a huge tourist destination. It gives more than a glimmer of the many facets of Don Guillermo / Bill Spratling, a man who intended to find respite and refuge, resuscitated a community and gave many livelihood, and largely withdrew from that same community in his last years.

This is written from a perspective of someone who was privileged to know Taxco, since as a youngster I hung around the talleres- especially of Hector Aguilar and the Castillo family- developing a love of Mexican silver and some rudimentary smithing skills of my own.

The best part was the twelve pages of solid black near the middle. I don't know what the second-best part was. Maybe the jars of rotting mayonaise. Hey, as long as the grant money keeps pouring in, it beats working for a living.

If you enjoy contemporary art and are open to new ideas with distraction, William Pope.L: The Friendliest Black Artist in America is a must have. William Pope brings forth challenging, comforting, and inspiring notions to the average american.

". . . of considerable interest for its insights into the continuing puzzle of why so many German intellectuals were taken by Nazism and whether postmodernist thought is indictable for the seduction. . . .Roche has enriched the dialogue about a dark chapter in intellectual history. As neo-Nazism continues its troubling re-emergence in America and abroad, we cannot learn too much about its intellectual roots and seductions." -- from my review in the Journal of Value Inquiry, Vol. 28 (1994), 345-348.

Fr. Mark Hollenhorst was the most unusual Catholic priest I've ever known. He had a broad range of interests and a cultivated taste for the absurd.

This collection of his last homilies gives real insight into the process of dying and how to embrace the reality of finality.

I am curious about some of Fr. Graham's selections of Fr. Mark's homilies. Several are the old, stale fare that we hear again and again from the pulpit. Also, it would be nice to know the biblical readings upon which the sermons are based; Fr. Graham left out most of the citations as well as the liturgical settings.

Despite the above mentioned flaws, Fr. Hollenhorst's sermons are outstanding reflections on religion, life and death in modern times.

This book has been informative in that I have learned a great deal about the political and militaristic problems Washington endured during America's push for independence. I have a feeling that, without Washington's sacrifice, America as we know it probably wouldn't occur. However, I also think of the famous quote attributed to Napoleon that "History is the myth men choose to believe." While Thomas Paine wrote about independence for the colonies, he also tore into the concept of slavery as immoral, so it wasn't as if no one was talking about this issue. If Washington would have "stepped up" and abolished slavery then and there, so that all men (and women) were truly created equal, as I said before, America might not be here. It was a politically divided and bankrupt country. I don't consider those reasons justification for sacrificing another person's human rights. The racial problems we face today stem from a lack of identity stolen from a stolen people

who did much of the work to build this country in its early days and, while the opprtunity was there, given nothing in return. "Patriot Sage" is an excellent insight into many aspects of Washington's life of which I was ignorant (like his influence on the Constitutional Convention) Sadly, some of its essays are too right-wing, to the point of Clinton bashing. What modern era president could really live up to the accomplishments of the one who defined the job's parameters ? One essay focuses on the moral symbolism of Washington now devoid in today's presidents, while another openly admits he gambled and sought prostitutes. To be read overall with some perspective.

'Tooth Imprints on A Corndog' is great. This one is an unreadable collection of rambling nonsense.

Leyner is more often than not a solid 4-star writer (My Cousin, Et Tu, Tetherballs), but his first book offers little pleasure beyond the fun of its title. A number of years passed between this debut and the much more worthwhile "My Cousin" and it was a healthy period of artistic growth, evidently. There are a few flashes of cleverness here and there, but this is overall a soggy and underdeveloped effort that makes you realize how delicate and precise his unique style is: in later works, it's a marvel of pop culture satire, rapid fire wit, and intriguing arcania. Here, it's a sophomoric dud that too often reads like really bad Barthelme. Or really bad Leyner.

Don't misunderstand: everything Leyner's done after this first collection is brilliant writing and mandatory reading. But ESTHER WILLIAMS is the most godawful hodgepodge of literary conceits and pratfalls you may ever be unlucky enough to read. Obviously, some episode of satori marked the time between this and his next book, the now-classic MY COUSIN, MY GASTROENTEROLOGIST. I'm being harsher than I should be, perhaps, considering how great a satirist Leyner has become. But even he probably wishes this book would crawl off his resume. Take a pass on ESTHER and go straight to his other four collections.

This is the worst java book I've ever read. The book is unorganized and the content is not suitable for the beginner at all.

The companion CD-ROM is useless.

If the authors would like to publish the new version for JDK 1.2, there will be a lot of works they need to get accomplished.

Simple words from me.... Don't buy this book.

Covers alot of fancy staff but has a great lack of contents. It seems like the author has rushed through the book just to fill it out with the Java 1.1 features and forgot to describe the import basics behind the language. There's now way you're gonna be a Java guru by reading this book!

It is very thorough. Almost everything important about java is in there including JDBC, JNI, Java Beans, Servlets, security management, even the specification of the virtual machine and most is explained well understandble. It is the best java book I ever saw!