The descriptions of Wine Country were interesting, and I did WANT to like the book........but frankly, it was less-than-riveting and the characters were more like the Three Stooges, especially the WAY over-the-top Nurse Astrid. I much prefer the tongue-in-cheek, subtle humor of Robert B. Parker or Lawrence Sanders' Archie McNally character. Had it not been for Wine Country descriptions, I don't think I would have finished the book!

This is surely the be-all and end-all of wine thrillers. A clown-and-demon bunch of international plotters try to take over a fine, small American vineyard. Their efforts explode with murder, mayhem, sea and highway chase scenes, and yes, there's also high and low comedy and a quality cabernet romance. Tucked in are fascinating and obscure goblets of information on wine-selling, wine-tasting and wine-adulterating. I'd sooner put aside a glass of some grand cru than "Grand Cru." If this isn't a bestseller, there's no literary justice left.

Barney Leason knows his California wine country as well as Elmore Leonard knows the underside of Florida. "Grand Cru" is as smooth as a fine California Pinot Noir, a fast-paced comic thriller that occasionally erupts into outrageous farce, a Leason specialty. Laugh-out-loud funny in places, warm-hearted, consistently readable, just the book to have handy in your carry-on bag for a long flight to the West Coast.

If you already know enough to do most of the work on a car or truck where you can reach most of the parts (like maybe you've rebuilt an engine or two, replaced a clutch, put new shoes on drum brakes) then this book will probably provide the information you need to do work on the parts of the Grand Cherokee that you can reach. If you have a good pheumatic ratchet wrench and the time, you can probably do the balance of the mechanical work yourself. This book will not tell you what to do when your coil burns out repeatedly or help you diagnose that your injector pump impeller lunched itself and spit little pieces throughout your entire injection system. Chrysler/Mopar will charge you more than you can imagine to fix those two, and a good - very good - local mechanic will still charge a lot. This is not a book for beginners, but engines built since about 1980 are not for beginners. For me this book rates 4 stars, but for the general market, I'm going with three.

I am very happy with this book but it has two major problems.
1) Not so many quality pictures, could be more ilustrated.
2) Doesn't cover so well all some areas (ex: interior and brakes) while extensively cover areas like engine overhaul.
I'd recommend if you are interested in doing some mechanical repairs by your own.

If you want to get an upgrade or a problem fixed quick and easy, Haynes Jeep Manuals are by far the best. Trying to buy the original manuals from the Chrysler official website can set you back $70 instead of a great value for [price]

The Juan Bobo tales are a staple of Puerto Rican childhood and remembered fondly by all Puerto Rican's. It's unfortunate the illustrator of this children's book chose to draw the silly and bufoonish Juan Bobo as black, whereas his poor but more intelligent mother is light brown and the "sophisticated" and "wealthy" nieghbor is white. Bottom line, the darker the character, the less fortunate, intelligent, and classy s/he is.

I would never expose my children to this type of subtle racial undertone, and I recommned that you DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK, until the illustrator is able to excise ethnic bigotry from his artwork.

From a Puerto Rican father of three daughters, and as many Puerto Rican families, my children come in various tones of color. My eldest is Castillian White with Hazel eyes, and my twins one is dark with beautiful curly hair, she took the side of my Mother's African Yoruba background, the other, straight dark hair, with her beautiful Taino colored skin that comes from my fathers side. I bought this book way back in August 1996. ( I date all my children's books) and it has held a very important spot in our personal library. I can not agree withy the other review on this book. It has nothing to do with racial. Take it from me, a Puerto Rican male of mixed backgrounds who follows an African Spiritual tradition. This book is Innocently Beautiful, Reminiscent of our Boriquen Mulatto Heritage. Africano + Taino + Castillano = Puerto Rican.

It is 4 classic tales of Puerto Rican folklore, from the legendary Juan Bobo. The Stories are told buy mulatto author and writer, Carmen Bernier, and Ernesto Ramos Nieves. The illustration are beautiful in a childish way, bright colors that are so remanisant of the Puerto Rican rural countryside. If you look at the characters closely, no one is truly white, as was stated in a review prior to mine. In fact if you look at the "White" neighbor, she has the appearance of a mulatto, as does every one in the book. Also she lives in a wooden casita, as does Juan Bobo and his Mother.

This book is very much true to our Boriquen People on the island, it is not uncommon to see in one family, different tones and different colors. All the tales in this book are classics in Puerto Rican literature and folktale. The stories are as follows.

There are many books out there about Juan Bobo, and each one is a gem, and the stories presented here can be read in other books. But this is "An I Can Read Book" Aimed for younger children. Infect it was this book that one of my daughters read buy herself from front to back. I love this book and highly recommended. The stories are as follows.

The Best Way to Carry Water,
A Pig in Sundays Clothes.
Do Not Sneeze, Do Not Scratch..... Do Not Eat.
and A Dime A Jug.. Each one is a classic as verbally passed down to our parents from our Abuelos, and their Abuelos.

I love to read this book to my students. My favorite of the four tales is "A Pig in Sunday Clothes." The illustrations and Juan Bobo himself are adorable as well as silly. Puerto Rican traditions are also depicted in the drawings: rice and beans, plantains, vejigantes...

This book is exactly what you'd expect from a book purchased at a gift shop at the Grand Canyon, bland.

It is by no-means in-depth and spends more time describing the antiques that Colter decorated her buildings with than with her life. Colter was a fascinating woman and I would have liked to learn more about her than this book provided.

Being as how Colter isn't exactly someone you're likely to read more than one book about, I would recommend purchasing something with more pictures and information than this one, which is more just a basic outline.

"Builder upon the Red Earth" is not the slick tome of expensive color photographs and analytical drawings that Mary Colter's unique contribution to Twentieth Century American Architecture deserves. However, this essentially biographical book is the only one in print showing pictures and telling the history of Mary Colters extrodinary talent.It is not clear if Mary Colter's obscurity is due to the fact that she was a woman practicing architecture in a time when the field was dominated by men or if the remote Southwestern locations of her most interesting works kept them hidden form view, but it is high time more people took a serious look at her work. Colter's projects, which are "built ruins" foreshadow the work of Western deconstructionist architects like Antoine Predoc or Tom Maine. Showing the work of Colter which is almost 80 years ahead of its time "Builder upon the Red Earth" should be in every young architects library.

Although I agree with the reviewer who says that Mary Colter deserves a far better book, I still highly recommend this one, as at least it fills in a gap that's almost the same size as the canyon where Colter's buildings still stand today. More people should read it so that some will be inspired to write more!

What a dissapointment this book turned out to be. One would think the "ultimate" guide to hiking would contain detailed trail descriptions and suggested itineraries. The second sentence in the book says it all, "...provides basic information..."

This book provides very little in the way of interesting land marks and "must sees" for a trip to the Grand Canyon.

This is the best guide to hiking the Grand Canyon for beginning to intermediate hikers. I've hiked rim to rim 4 times, and carried this book each time. There are topographic map inserts of the Grand Canyon (like the background on the cover), with trails labled on them. Also, there are altitude profile maps of the trials showing the steepness of the trails and pointing out the campgrounds, water, and resthouses. This is very useful for trip planning, unless you are an all out jock. The single most important detail in planning a safe trip in the Grand Canyon is looking at the distance and altitude travled per day. Pages and pages on eating and drinking and staying cool will not help. Eat, and drink, and do not walk between the hours of 12 and 5 pm. Also, if you stay in a campground below the rim, the leader on the permit will receive a free video from the Park Service, which outlines, in great melodramatic detail, what to pack, and how to prevent illness and injurys.

The pictures are beautiful and in full color. They will help you identify flora and fauna along the way. All necessary contact numbers are listed. Also, proceeds of this book go to the Grand Canyon Association.

Unlike other Grand Canyon hiking books (Hiking the Grand Caynon a Sierra Club Totebook) this books focus is only on hiking, and doesn't take up page after page with information about the rims or river guides. Also, unlike almost all other Grand Canyon hiking books this book can be added to your pack without adding too much additional weight. Usually I carry this book,with my topo maps, and my Grand Canyon Association trail guides tucked inside, between the small of my back and my pack, I can reach back and access it easily whenever I want to look something up on the trail.

The guide provides a wealth of general information for first-time, and repeat hikers of the Grand Canyon, as well as covering in detail the most popular hiking trails. The text is accompanied by excellent, high-quality trail maps, elevation diagrams, and beautiful color photos.

I bought the book after hiking the canyon for the first time as a souvenier of the trip and to help me plan my next hike. You can use the book to show your friends or family, "This is what I'm going to do", or document what you did.

If you've never hiked the Grand Canyon, this is the book to inform you of what to expect, help you make your hiking plans, and to build your enthusiasm and excitement for the trip!

The book is only 68 pages long, but is packed with useful information. Well worth the price!

jes

Why bother with a bio of hipster Terry Southern?Author tries a tongue in cheek run, but that does not work . Southern, by this account , was an alcoholic who made his living scribbling lines for B movies. Check that the author is a Canadian who does not have the slightest idea of what life was like in Terry Southern's haunts.Read this only if you wish to see what low grade stuff publishers are shoeveling onto the market these days .

I happen to agree with the sentiments espoused by Harold Leffingwell (see review above). Poor Lee Hill was disserved by his editors, who permitted him to compile a 'Terry Southern and his times' tome that is chock-a-block with cliches and party lists, and lacking in critical focus of the man. It tries to be both cultural history and biography, and fails on both counts. However, this is the first and badly needed biography of a man who brought fame and fortune to dozens of other people, and Hill deserves to be commended for his years of spade-work.

Hill has no feel for American culture. He is apparently a Canadian who spent some time in London and is primarily a film historian. His sense of cultural history in a broader scale is ludicrously third-hand, delivered in broad generalities on the order of, "America was in the grip of repressive McCarthyism in the early fifties," or "Many well-meaning people were concerned about the plight of the negro."

Paradoxically, Hill titles his book 'A Grand Guy,' although his lack of feel for modern American cultural history makes it impossible for him to tell us where Terry Southern's 'Grand Guy' persona came from. The 'Grand Guy' act, a compound of heartiness, mock-haughty superciliousness, and college-humor hyperbole, was a standard persona for those of Southern's generation. Many of Southern's contemporaries (from Gore Vidal to Bill Buckley and even Norman Mailer) played the same notes on their fiddles. This act was a continuation of the tongue-in-cheek snootiness you find in the early years of the Luce publications (where Time letter writers would be accorded a put-down caption on the order of, "Let Subscriber Brailsford Mend His Ways!") as well as The New Yorker (think of Peter Arno's captions or E.B. White's snotty captions for squibs pulled from local newspapers). This was the accepted "hip" idiom for the 20th Century Quality-Lit man, and it reached its full effulgence in the Esquire of the 1960s, when an unrelenting, over-the-top mockery of sacred cows became the mark of sophistication. Southern's tragedy, perhaps, is that he got stuck in what was essentially a passing style of ephemeral journalism, and he was unable to grow beyond it, and he had no friends to encourage him to grow beyond it. Thus, by the early 70s, his output was reduced to self-parodying letters to his friend and imitator at the National Lampoon, Michael O'Donoghue.

excellent and direly-needed bio in these irony-free days. a great picture of the swinging 60's too.

Everything detailed in this book is an ex post facto defense to Raeder's Nuremberg sentencing. What began as a memoir on his early childhood and his enlistment in the navy quickly becomes what appears to be just an insider's description of the Imperial Navy, the aftermath of WWI and the restrictions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles, the need for Germany to protect itself against France and Poland, and various other fronts which Raeder tediously presents before the reader. Toward the middle of the book and following to the back cover, Raeder continues to bring up Nuremberg, when you truly get the idea that this book was more an explanation than a history, more a document to counter the Allied perspective than a memoir, and more a tedious legal defense than an engaging history. As the Grand Admiral of the Navy, Raeder's perspective is significant to a comprehensive reading about the war, yet his effort falls in the same barrel as the inept rendition by Patton (War As I Knew It).

This is perhaps one of the most interesting of the voluminous pantheon of memoirs published in the aftermath of World War II. Raeder was already an old man when WWII started, and a series of strategic and tactical mistakes made by both he and Hitler rendered even the most lethal Kreigsmarine units useless.

I like the "inside story" Adm. Raeder provides -- the petty jealousies of the German military leadership, the personal rivalry with Hermann Goering over the fate of naval aviation.

Perhaps the weakest element of this book is Raeder's biases and constant reassertion of his own honorable status. Still, that seems to be the only thing that drags this otherwise revealing work down. A must read for naval, especially battleship, enthusiasts.

A very interesting saga of the Grand Canyon. Especially of interest to those who have been fortunate enough to visit the sights and locations discussed in the book.

This was one of the best books I have read in a long time. I lived at the Grand Canyon for over a year & was so interested in this book I kept looking things up, to see which was fiction & not. I really enjoyed it and learned a lot of things I didn't know.

This is a pretty good book, it has lots of detail and is well written, but its all in black and white and it doesn't cover any of the technical aspects of the cars and how they changed over the years. Overall I was very disappointed and the book is pricey, plus it only goes up to the '97 season.

Its a good, voluminous, and heavy book (as a good encyclopedia should be), with all drivers, teams, and circuits up to 1999. Color photographs of most of the above are provided. Unfortunately the circuit descriptions don't include track layouts and sometimes its difficult to know where they are. The final stats section has all the numbers and categories you could need. A great reference book!

Those familiar with the "Encyclopedia" books of other sports will know that this is a statistical journey rather than a photographic timeline. This book covers every Constructor, Driver, Circuit, and Record since the British Grand Prix 13 May 1950 when Giuseppe Farina won this 70 lap race in 2hr13m23.6sec driving for Alpha Romeo SpA. However, the book may seem dated as it ends coverage with the European Grand Prix in October of 1997. Most of the current Formula One drivers are covered though maybe with a different team. There is also a nice Forward by the British voice of Formula One, Murray Walker. A good reference book for any F1 fan with an interest in the history of this sport. Remember, no glossy photos of brave drivers or the powerful and beautiful cars they pilot, just some Black and White shots here and there and interesting facts and figures about Formula One in between.

Poorly written, childish name calling and half truths, many with no factual evidence wastes the readers time. Where are the state by state election calls--if Gore was winning by 3%, a state was called for him within 20 minutes after the polls closed--or many before the polls closed. I watched the results, and waited almost 2 1/2 hours befor Bush double digit wins in Tennessee and Arkansas were put in his column. The author is a fiction writer, I'm afraid. I was looking for facts.

If this was a book worth writing and reading (it was), then it was also worth editing and proofreading. In fact, however, the book is marred by egregious redundancies, stupid typos, and other editorial lapses. The publisher's handling of this title has been unprofessional from start to finish; witness the unavailability of the book, despite the great interest in reading it (an interest that encourages Amazon.com and others to jack up the price to three figures). It would serve the author and the book if Rowman and Littlefield would simply let the book go all the way out of print and let a real publisher edit, reprint, and properly publish it.

I write this review in direct opposition to the Publishers Weekly critique. ...

Simply, Grand Theft 2000 is a political polemic from the Left that skewers #43, #41 and the entirety of their military-minded, big-business administrative cronies: Bush is flatly called an undeserving baby and images are presented of him sitting on daddy's knee as Son of Bush, both Bushes are the heirs of Nazi money, Cheney is a devious Machiavellian, Rumsfeld is a crazed racist who resembles Dr. Strangelove -- zig heil! Perhaps you have to be involved with high culture to understand what is truly interesting about this book: it is a set of theses nailed directly to the President's door...from a Philosophy chair at a major American university! A professional philosopher engaged up to his eyeballs in political pamphleteering? And we thought this only happened in Women's Studies.

Of course, that Kellner manages to so clearly barbecue the new President with a vast amalgam of critical media facts, means that this polemic is doubly-informed as good scholarship and serves as an important historical document as well. Beyond, then, being a mere send-up of the Bushes, Grand Theft 2000 is also a powerful political text and an important counter-historical document that serves to critically inform the establishment myth even as it exposes that myth as media spectacle.

Yes, it is true that no book can say everything and Grand Theft 2000 will not serve to supplant all of its competitors -- but does it intend to? Instead, this book is a rallying call to become better informed about the past election and its meaning for the present day. Grand Theft 2000 is as an encyclopedia of valuable progressive information on the election, including a number of Internet links, and in this respect alone it deserves to be thought of as one of the more useful books to have been published about the election.

Finally, let me point out that this book has been much more favorably reviewed -- most recently by Salon -- and I submit this review now only because it deserves a better reputation than Publishers Weekly affords it. Thanks -- and hope this helps.