and Sunnie Wilson lived up to that motto by giving back generously to the black community. His motto might also have been "a bed and good meal for every musician" because he owned and operated the Mark Twain Hotel expressly for that purpose. BB King, Dizzy Gillespie,Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and many more stayed there. Sunnie also ran several show bars in Detroit's "northern" Paradise Valley. The book contains hundreds of stories having to do with musicians whose names are very common today. He was also very influencial in the political climate of the 1930 and 1940s in Detroit, and provides much insite into those times. Some of his greatest successes occured in the rich entertainment district that centered around John R, where today the Detroit Medical Center sits. To understand the history, you have to read the book, almost nothing remains of what was sometimes called the "near eastside ghetto".

A great read. It reads like a novel, but leaves you with hard facts that easily pop up in conversation, and give perspective into the future.

Great pictures, lots of action. Even you won't get tired of reading this one over and over, you will discover something new everytime you little one wants to read it! Lots of fun!

Great book. Well-written, humorous, well-plotted. I look forward to more books in what could be a well-done series. I'm a big fan of John Morgan Wilson's Justice series and while this is not as dark as those can be, it is well worth the read.

Blue Moon is one of those rare pieces I read in one sitting. The authors craft a story with good pace (the celluloid runs through your mind during the car chase to the Golden Gate Bridge) Having been interested in the Duchin story for years, the authors play with Peter Duchin's personal history and use it to wonderful effect. Just as Philip Damon prefers of his music, the book "swings".

Society bandleader Peter Duchin and Edgar Award winning author John Morgan Wilson team up and give us a smoothly written little mystery in "Blue Moon."

Set in the San Francisco of 1963, they blend history with fiction in an action packed noirish plot.

Celebrities and pop icons of the day from Joe DiMaggio to Andy Warhol---Jackie Kennedy to Jack Kerouac---Truman Capote to Willie Mays pop up along with a major part for Herb Caen.

It has the feel of Archy McNally meeting up with The Thin Man---snappy dialogue, complex plot, lotsa characters with agendas, many cocktails, dead bodies and an alto sax playing San Francisco Inspector who sits in with the protagonist's (Philip Damon) band.

It is an excellent amateur sleuth whodunit peopled with intriguing characters. The atmosphere of sixties San Francisco is truly captured.

There are many laughs along the way. "Blue Moon" is big fun.

"Much Ado About Nothing" is a beautifully made, performed, and directed film by the incomparable Kenneth Branaugh. This film includes an all-star cast that give wonderful performances and draw you into the lives of the characters. The plot is somewhat complicated, so I'll give a general version. The film is basically about love, misunderstanding, scandal, revenge, virtue, and bravery. That's a lot for one film, but believe me, it's all in there!

Kenneth Branaugh, Emma Thompson, Denzel Washington, Keanu Reeves, and Michael Keaton give excellent performances in this film that you wouldn't want to miss. Although the film is a period piece and the Shakespearean language is used, you will have no difficulty understanding it perfectly.

The scenery and landscape in this film are exquisite as well. I never thought there could be such a beautiful, untouched place like that on earth. I would suggest watching the film just for the beautiful landscape, but it's the performances and the story that you should really pay attention to.

Anyone who loves Shakespeare would absolutely love this film! Anyone who loves Kenneth Branaugh and what he has done for Shakespeare in the past 10 or 15 years will appreciate this film as well! There isn't one bad thing I can say about this film. Definitely watch it, you won't be disappointed!!!

One of the problems with Shakespeare's comedies, an English professor once told me, is that they are not funny. Now, this is not to say that Shakespeare was a bad comedy writer, or that this professor had no sense of humour. In fact, quite the opposite--he had turned his sense of humour and love of humour into an academic career in pursuit of humour.

What he meant by the comment was, humour is most often a culture-specific thing. It is of a time, place, people, and situation--there is very little by way of universal humour in any language construction. Perhaps a pie in the face (or some variant thereof) does have some degree of cross-cultural appeal, but even that has less universality than we would often suppose.

Thus, when I suggested to him that we go see this film when it came out, he was not enthusiastic. He confessed to me afterward that he only did it because he had picked the last film, and intended to require the next two selections when this film turned out to be a bore. He also then confessed that he was wrong.

Brannagh managed in his way to carry much of the humour of this play into the twentieth century in an accessible way -- true, the audience was often silent at word-plays that might have had the Elizabethan audiences roaring, but there was enough in the action, the acting, the nuance and building up of situations to convey the same amount of humour to today's audience that Shakespeare most likely intended for his groups in the balconies and the pit.

The film stars Kenneth Brannagh (who also adapted the play for screen) and Emma Thompson as Benedict and Beatrice, the two central characters. They did their usual good job, with occasional flashes of excellence. Alas, I'll never see Michael Keaton as a Shakespearean actor, but he did a servicable job in the role of the constable (and I shall always remember that 'he is an ass') -- the use of his sidekick as the 'horse' who clomps around has to be a recollection of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, where their 'horses' are sidekicks clapping coconut shells together.

I'll also not see Keanu Reeves as a Shakespearean, yet he was perhaps too well known (type-cast, perhaps) in other ways to pull off the brief-appearing villian in this film.

Lavish sets and costumes accentuate the Italianate-yet-very-English feel of this play. This film succeeds in presenting an excellent but lesser-known Shakespeare work to the public in a way that the public can enjoy.

I saw this movie when I was fairly young. I admit that I couldn't understand much of what was going on let along what was being said (I was nine, I wasn't exactly fluent in Olde English). Since then I've watched it many times. Not only do I understand it now, but I fully apreciate how good it is.

The movie is a very good adaptation of the play. The impressive lines that Shakespeare wrote were generally given new life in their delivery. Also, I must compliment Michael Keaton on his role. It isn't a very big one, but if you watch this movie, you'll understand why I mentioned it. Overall, this is simply a fully enjoyable movie, whether you're a fan of Shakespeare or not.

The previous editions of this book contained a lot of reference information and illustrations for both novice and experienced home carpenter. This edition has changed the emphasis to students primarily, with larger type but less specific reference material such as hanging doors, special framing problems, etc. Disappointing.

This book shows anyone the technical aspects of home construction in very clear terms. The formulas are excellent for figuring the costs of a project. The format is very simple to learn and the tests at the end of each chapter summarize the material well.

This is *the* book, wheither you are a novice or a master carpenter! It contains plenty of helpful and informative charts, diagrams, pictures and examples - how to calculate materials and costs, board feet, compares different materials and specifies the applications. It starts from the basics of hand tools and power tools with clear instructions their use, maintenance, and even some repair. You're guided from planning and preparing the building site all the way to completion of construction. I didn't see where anything was left out. My father was a building contractor for 56 years. This book is like having his knowledge at my fingertips!

Intrigued after reading the previous reviews, I went and purchased this book first, even though I believe it is the 3rd of the series. I won't go into the plot but I will say that the author develops his characters in such a way that you feel as if you really know and care about what happens. Excellent pace to the story. Had me turning pages to find out what happened next. Enjoyed it so much I went and bought 2 of the other novels in the series. Recommended.

I really enjoyed this third Benjamin Justice novel. Ben is such a wonderful character, and now that he has turned 40, things are looking up for him. He's got a new job at a Public Broadcasting Station writing a documentary series on AIDS and bare-back riding, a very controversial new trend. Justice and his new associate producer go looking for the episode's producer, Tommy Callahan, who hasn't been heard from in over a week. Tommy is later found murdered. It's from this point on in the story that Ben gets involved in solving this mystery, and his life gets turned upside down, and backwards. At the same time, Ben is struggling with his love life, infatuated with Peter, the associate producer ( a blond beauty) and Oree, a sophisticated gentlemen more his own age.

There's always plenty of surprises in John Wilson's novels, and this one is one of his best. You just can't wait to get to the end to find out how everything is going to turn out. And the characters are always so well-developed you feel like they could be your friends. I read his last mystery, "The Limits of Justice" first, so now I am working on his previous three. It's best if you can start from his first one, and read the whole series in order, although each book stands on its own. If you like mysteries, you'll really enjoy this one, I did.

I like this series because the most difficult questions are raised and the author faces them with honesty and fearlessness. He isn't afraid to take us all the way down the darkest corridors of ourselves or of the society we have created. I read and re-read all of them and ask myself the same questions, Justice asks. What is desire? If we follow it, where will it take us? What is honesty and when is it useful, when distructive? How do we deal with the persistance of slings and arrows, especially as we get older? And the terrible reality of not knowing ever, really, why we do what we do. Wilson asks more than this, following the answers relentlessly toward often ambiguous conclusions. These books are thought provoking as well as entertaining. Tough stuff, but irresistible and memorable.

The chapters (10-13) on RDS made this book well worth it for me, since true client-side recordsets were integral to the suceess of a particular intranet project I was on (don't hold your breath waiting for any useful documentation from Microsoft on RDS). Some of your own experimentation is necessary as you expand out further from the RDS examples they give. They could have taken RDS a bit further than they did, but what they gave was still helpful to me. Everything they do cover is well-represented with code examples.

I kind of thought the amount of space devoted to ADO was excessive, since if you're trying to implement RDS, you probably already know much of the ADO they teach here. Some of that space would have been better used to expand on RDS a bit.

The included ADO 2.0 reference (Appendix A) and RDS 2.0 reference (Appendix B) are useful, and the sections on Oracle are helpful if your code has to work against Oracle backends.

One other note: In books like this, I rely on the index a lot to quickly get to topics I need. The index in this book is pretty bad. If you want to reference things for future use in this book, buy yourself a highlighter pen.

Bottom line, if you need to use RDS, bite the bullet (kind of expensive) and get this book. For ADO, however, you might want to look elsewhere.

I had developed 2 projects using ADO and ASP before, now I have a third. This time I decieded to get more information about this matter and bought this book which I found of great help. If you really are an experienced user you don't need this book, but if you are new or intermediate get this book, you wont't be dissappointed. It is worth the money I spent. BUY IT. I am getting all I need to build my third project.

I first bought this book for the RDS part since I've been working with ADO since it got out. I tought I knew ADO and even though I knew a lot about it, I've learned as much about ADO than about RDS with this book!

Good for any programmers working with ADO, as always, Wrox made it possible for beginners to understand the book and for experienced programmers to learn new stuff.

Another must by Wrox and I'm waiting to get a hand on the "Professional Ado 2.5 Rds Programming With Asp 3.0" that should be coming out soon.

This book offers a foundation for political concepts and historic background about the U.S. Using standard survey course format, the author skims the broad topics of government from the core documents, including the Declaration and the Constitution, to the general structures and processes of governing. While I must conclude with a prior reviewer that the writing is unexciting, I have yet to find THE basic government text equivalent of "Democracy - Not 4 Dummies"

American Government covered everything and anything on politics. I could not have asked for a better introduction on politics! It covered everything from the US Constitution to interest groups and the bureaucracy. If you are interested in politics, but need a simple, solid introduction, this book is for you! However, I found the book was difficult to read, as it was poorly written and tedious at times. Although this book is probably the best intro to Government around, do not buy it if you have a short attention span.

A trully remarkable text book! This text strives where many fail, in communicating with students from AP level high school to Doctoral studies. Includded are full color diagrams on the political process, governmental structure dating back to the 1600s. Also, philisophical viewpoints from Plato to John Locke. The benefit of the text, is its current up-to-date information on the 'insides' of political views and parties. This text would assist anyone in learning about our nations history and government.

Robert Anton Wilson is one of the most forward thinkers of his time. Wilson's first book in this series leads you down his path of exploring the changes he underwent by using mind expanding drugs and experimenting with magick rituals. Wilson's storyline of his mind expansion intersects along the way with his real life and allows the reader an insight into what types of things were influencing his decisions as he probed deeper into this fantastical realm. The timeline shifts around but the reader is never dissatisfied. The second part of the book deals with the scientific basis behind his studies and those of other free thinkers such as Timothy Leary.

I first became interested in Wilson after reading the Illuminati trilogy. This book will only add to anyone's appreciation for that book and its author. This book provides some background into the events which are covered by the trilogy. In general, the Cosmic Trigger series begins with a bang. 4 stars losing one for the sometimes cryptic nature of the writing, but then again, that is RAW.

This is really the only book you need to buy by Robert A. Wilson; his fiction is pretty awful (cardboard characters and self-referential plots drowning in footnotes); and all his other nonfiction works are the same repetitive rambling about the strange soup he makes of his favorites: Leary's levels of consciousness, general semantics, James Joyce, western philosophy (all of which he well understands), mysticism (which he does not) and Wilson's own mediocre interpretation of the philosophical implications of the quantum theory (he's an old-school copenhagenist). Cosmic Trigger has all that but much more; autobiography lends it a lovely basic narrative structure that is far more affecting than any of his silly novels, it has the phantasmagoric black-comic mood he fails to quite pull off in fiction, and of course is written in his usual direct, smooth, readable, and frequently hilarious prose style. If only he weren't from the foul "take more dope" hedonistic-materialistic school of consciousness and hadn't therefore been eating acid like candy when he wrote this, we might even be able to relate some of these events from his internal universe of perception to the external universe we share.

This was my first introduction to the writings of Robert Anton Wilson, at a time in my life when the limited, inconsistant, and ludicrous models of reality offered by the world seemed too limiting to bear. What Wilson offers here appears (in my reality tunnel) to be a look into the largely misunderstood philosophy of agnosticism, as well as his own experiences with love, sex, drugs, yoga, magik, life, death, and governmental corruption.

Does this review capture Wilson, or Cosmic Trigger I in its entirety? Of course not, and Wilson is fully aware that his writings and non-beliefs defy any catagorization (his books are very hard to find in retail stores). All I can offer is my uninformed opinion that there is no wiser, more humorous, and generally more interesting than Robert Anton Wilson.

I studied in Prague for the last four months, and I took this book with me everywhere. It is the only guidebook that has the hours that everything is open and how to get there. All of the information in it is highly reliable. I highly recommend it if you plan on spending more than a few weeks in Prague, although I supplemented it with the Eyewitness Guide to Prague and the Rough Guide to Prague.
However, it offered little advice on which the best places to eat and stay and visit are. It also has very few pictures, which is unfortunate, because out of the thousands of beautiful places to visit in Prague, it is helpful to be able to see which buildings appeal to oneself the most before choosing to visit them.
If you plan to stay in Prague for longer than a week, this is an essential book to buy. However, for quick trips to Prague, I would suggest buying the Rough Guide to Prague (it offers good advice about where to go) and the Eyewitness Guide to Prague (it has tons of pictures). Also, if you plan on spending more than a few days in Prague, buy the Lonely Planet Guide to the Czech and Slovak Republic - there is so much more to the Czech Republic than Prague, and taking a day trip or two outside of the city is time well spent.

Just returned from a 7 day visit to Prague. This book went with us everywhere!! We did 2 of the suggested "walks." Loved that it told you what to see if you had an hour or if you had an afternoon.

Everyone of the restaurants we visited based on LP's recommedation was amazing. (We're thinking of buying the LP guide to NYC so we know where to grab a bite after work).

We also took along the Eye Witness guide when we went to major spots -- Prague Castle, Charles Bridge -- because it had more pictures.

Will buy a LP guide for next overseas travel!!

In the past year I have had the chance to travel to Prague, Paris, and London, and for each trip I brought along a Lonely Planet city guide. These books are simply the best. In previous travels I have tried books by other groups, but Lonely Planet has never steered me wrong. The books are accurate and up-to-date, and offer advice for all modes of travel (economic, social, time constraints, interests, and so on). The history and culture sections are useful but not too long, and the same is true of the descriptions of the various sites and sights. Don't travel without one!