I received my copy of this book a couple of days ago with the similar Apple book (see my seperate review of that one). I bought it on the strength on the Author's similar Capitol volumes and boy it's amazing how much research this guy puts into his work. The Vee-Jay story was pretty much an unknown quantity to us Aussies so it's all the more fascinating to read the twists and turns of Vee-Jay's involvement in Beatlemania back in 1963-64. The chapters are mind-boggling to read. All 4 Capitol & Others vs Vee Jay legal cases are thoroughly detailed though I have skimmed through these because it's just so much to take in. The chapter on "Introducing The Beatles" was my main interest because I have a copy of the Mono Version #1 LP which I bought in an Auction here over 10 years ago. I have verified that it's the real deal thanks to this book + Perry Cox's "Beatles Price Guide". No, it's not for sale either!! The label representations and pictures of old original 45's are amazing and enough to drool over. I can't add much more than my colleague reviewers here other than you must have this and the Author's other books (On Capitol #1 & 2 & On Apple) if you're a serious Beatle nut like me. Even if you're not it's a wonderful addition to any Rock Music book library.

This is a definitive Beatles book. I am so thankful for Mr. Bruce Spizer for coming up with such an excellent source of material, and handily placing it together into one magnificent hard-bound volume. The full-color illustrations are out-of-this-world! I never knew that so many different label and jacket variations ever existed before this. The very day that i purchased this book, I also purchased what I consider to be THE ultimate companion album; an imported CD by The Beatles, entitled "The V-J Story", which contains ALL sixteen original Beatles songs first issued on the V-J label. The good news is that ALL sixteen songs are in beautiful stereophonic sound (with the exceptions of "Love Me Do" and "P.S. I Love You", which are only monophonic recordings electronically reprocessed into "fake" stereo). Nonetheless, this CD makes a perfect companion to Mr. Spizer's book. By all means, get this disc if you ever come across it.

This book is the best friend of anybody who is seriously interested in the Beatles' records on VeeJay. Even the most well informed fan will come away with tidbits of fresh information. The writing is sharp, clear and well organized and the work itself is nonpareil.

All in all, an excellent job. This one is a keeper. It gets two thumbs up, loud cheering and a hearty yeah, yeah, yeah!

I am not a Deadhead, nor am I a drummer, but I have really admired this book, and Mickey Hart big time. He really went off the deep end of his knowledge of percussion, both conventional, and exotic. I had not had this book with me since 1995, so my mind is a bit foggy, but if I remember right, the book is also a trip down Memory Lane, speaking of the hippie days of the Haight-Ashbury, The Grateful Dead and the whole scene in general. One of my favorites was of a drum he got in Tibet made from human skulls. He was wondering why he felt like he was being cursed, and he was told that he was using the drums wrong and it was used to wake the dead. He decided to return the drums and get a similar one not made of skulls. Drumming at the Edge of Magic was also a tie-in to what was then Mickey Hart's latest CD called At the Edge. This book really makes me wished I was there with the hippies and the Deadheads, even if I, myself don't listen to the Dead. It's too bad the Dead isn't around anymore thanks to Jerry Garcia's untimely death. Whether you're a Deadhead or not, whether you're a percussionist or not, this is truly an enthusiastic and well-written book on the subject of percussion.

At a glance, Drumming at the Edge of Magic may seem like an autobiogrphical journey by the Grateful Dead's Mickey Hart. While the book is autobiographical, it goes far beyond that to discover the real meaning of drumming and music in general.

The meaning of drumming (or life?) comes in many forms, and many disguises. As Hart begins to unluck the secrets to why humans desire to express themselves in music, one can't help but say, "YES!". Hart, and to a certain extent, Jay Stevens, put into words what drummers and other musicians have felt all along but have never known how to express. The journey ends up being a look inward; not just for Hart but for the reader as well.

After reading this, I had my wife and father read it. I explained, "This is how I feel about drumming."

The companion CD and sequel book, "Planet Drum," are nice additions but the book stands by its self as an outstanding source for understanding music at its most basic form.

This book will move you.

I'd lost interest in playing for about 5 years before I read this book, but Mickey Hart's book brought me back to the reasons I started hitting the bottom of tin cans woth a wooden spoon! This book follows, to a degree, the history of drums, and studies the emotional, spiritual and physical effects of drums, old ancient, and new on people. I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes to play for any or no reason, and to andone who can't explain why the music makes them dance.

If you do not file 20 or even a few more or a whole lot of ideas to bring profit to your business with this book, you never will.
You will find strange and wonderful ways and places to advertise with the ideas in this book:

49 techiques for inproving sales
48 Marketing ideas using new technology
60 Inventive ways to outperform the competition
57 unique tactics for direct marketing and distribution
31 tips for creating effective collateral
33 strategies for building your customer base

And an Introduction by none other than Jay Conrad Levison, The Guerrilla Marketing Genius.

Buy it! Do it Now!

This is BY FAR the best book I've read of marketing ideas. It contains not just the "ideas", but also actual case histories of the ideas and WHY they worked for that particular company. I have 4 solid pages of notes from this book of things I'd like to try....both for the home-based business I'm starting and for the marketing communications company I work for. Other books I've read (and there have been a lot) are too general and are not creative enough. There are dozens and dozens of ways to market, and this is the only book I've read that explores ideas that are off the beaten path (and work because of that). Examples: pay others in complimentary businesses a finder's fee to give you business; sponsor association site (offer discount to members); have defunct company's phone message refer customers to your business (with you paying balance of Yellow Pages fee in return). Just a sample of the simple but effective ideas found in this book.

This is a great book to get you thinking about all the possibilities that are available to you. It was exactly what I was looking for. As a small business owner, I am always looking for more ideas.

Jay Kaiser has done a wonderful job writting a comprehensive, interesting and helpful travel guide to Acadia. The book has information for any sort of trip: Whether you're interested in adventure (camping and rugged hikes) or relaxation (staying at an inn and finding great restaurants), this book will take you where you want to go. Lots of lovely pictures, helpful maps and lively comentary. I'm so glad to have had this book with me throughout my recent trip to Acadia to make it clear what sights I couldn't miss. I can't wait to return because there is so much left to discover!

For the type of person who needs to know the intimate details surrounding your destination, this book is a must. It touches on history, geography, geology of the region in a concise, logical manner, while offering an encompassing view of the activities, layout, and surrounding area. Pictures and detailed maps are scattered throughout the book providing a sense of place and are a trip planner's dream. PLUS, Mr. Kaiser includes an overview of the Maine lobster including eating instructions. Talk about covering all your bases! All in all, a very informative, detailed covering of Acadia and its surrounding area with an insider's take to avoiding crowds and hitting little known spots.

This book is a must have for those who have experienced the beauty or have the desire to experience the beauty and offerings of Acadia National Park. Mr. Kaiser has finally produced the guide to do Acadia justice. You'll learn all the side trips, cool lunch spots, etc. to enjoy on a Saturday afternoon hike with a buddy, and you'll also have the memory of your journey when you get home through Jay's pictures!

Jay Halpern was my freshman rhetoric teacher during my roughest year of college at Sacred Heart Univ. in Fairfield, CT. He is a great man that tought me how to write and how to handle the hard times that life deals you. Now finishing my junior year, Jay came in to speak to my screenwriting class before finals. For those of you who were saying that this book should be made into a film... good call because it's been optioned and Mark Edwards (another prof. of mine) is currently writing the screenplay. This book nearly scared the life out of me when I first read it. But I can't wait to see it on screen. Keep an eye out for it.

I found the book amonst 1000's in my home had been staring at the cover for years! I think the book choose me instead of me choosing. It is a mind tingling, page gripping story that doesn't let you rest. I have read it over and over and have lent it to numerous friends to read, and they all have the same rating, awesome. The less than perfect characters all coming togther to fight good and evil in a way thats unexpected, and horrid is a wonderful mix. I can't say enough but just read it.

I remember reading this in 1984 or 1985. My wife worked with Mr. Halpern at a facility for those with some mental and/or physical challenges, in Derby CT. Jay is as unique as his book is. I'd like to get a copy of it as well. I agree with all of the other comments. This would be great on the big screen.

This book is awesome. If you are a die hard Kevin Smith fan or if you just like sick humor this book's for you. It fills in the gaps of what happened between Chasing Amy and Dogma and even told the story about Suzanne. This book has everything, monkeys, fluffers, and even Doogie Howser.

Really gives you a better idea about Jay and his hetero lifemate, Silent Bob. Porn stars, The Fugitive and even Mr. Rogers make appearances. This series of comic books (four issues in this book) gives you the lowdown of J&SBs adventures from their scene in the Diner in "Chasing Amy" up until their grand appearance in "Dogma." Well drawn and exceptional stories make this a must for View Askew fanboys. Wanna know more about Suzanne, the monkey at the end of Mallrats? Wanna know how Jay and Silent Bob made it to Illinois? Wanna know what happened to Trish the Dish after Mallrats? All is explained right here. If you enjoy this book, also check out Clerks: The Comics by Kev Smith too.

Not a comic book for little kids, Chasing Dogma provides the adventures of Jay & Silent Bob up to the opening moments of the film DOGMA. This made me laugh outloud many times. Highly recommended for fans of Smith's films and others who appreciate humor on several levels -- from crude to philosophical.

I love this book. The poems are great and I can find the poems that Anne says in the movie, "Anne of green Gables" and "Anne of Avonlee" I love the poems. I like These are the Times That try Mens Soals.

This was my Dad's poetry text at college in the thirties. Every Christmas during his life he would read the 'holiday' poems to our family. I have carried on the tradition for my children and grandchildren and each year they await the reading of 'Bairnies Coodle Doon' and 'Jes for Christmas', two wonderful stories that bring forward the lives of children of a hundred years ago. If tradition is important to you and if you want to introduce your family to poetry as America knew it for the first 200 years, this collection if highly recommended.

My father had an old copy of this book that he read as a child. He loved to read his favorites from this book, or simply recite them from memory. They are classic rhyming poems. Another favorite book of mine is "Poetry for a Lifetime", a beautiful volume which includes a number of these poems, including "Plant a Tree" and "Home". It has a much larger number of poems and is illustrated and has comments from the editor. I highly recommend both books.

Although I do not regret my decision, after deferring entry to law school for three years, to finally choose another vocation, I maintain a strong interest in legal philosophy and history, and comparative and international law. For me, Jay Feinman's book was an especially delightful find on the law section of a general bookstore. Few jurists, other than those like Alan Dershowitz and Richard Posner, seem to communicate clearly and effectively in non-specialist books which can satisfy curiosity outside of immediate needs such as writing wills or understanding consumer rights.

The claim of this book to provide "everything" you need to know about American law is undoubtedly exagerrated. This being said, Feinman provides a clear, thoughtful, and insightful coverage of the essentials of all that is covered in the first-year curriculum of a first-year U.S. law school program without the pain of wading through extensive case material - contracts, criminal law, torts, property, constitutional law, and legal procedure.

The strength of this book lies in its emphasis on the open nature of many legal issues -- where there are no straightforward answers. I especially enjoyed, in the section on constitutional law, the superb discussion of the scope of the justiciability doctrine which eshews intrusion of courts into the authority of other branches of government. But what exactly constitues a nonjusticiable political question which the courts should not decide?

An extract from the author's section on civil procedure underscores his invitation to the reader to avoid thinking about the law as cut and dried subject matter and process: "The lesson from all of this is that clear, rigid legal rules are often not what they appear to be. They either produce injustice as they are applied in varying fact situations, or they demand interpretations and exceptions - yet interpretations and exceptions cause complexity and uncertainty. Broad, flexible legal rules, on the other hand, give the courts great discretion, and discretion produces conflicting decisions and uncertain rules, which is another form of complexity and injustice."

The last one and a half pages are a tour de force in clarity and simplicity for those seeking to appreciate legal reasoning. It identifies a limited set of questions which can be applied to any layman's encounter with legal issues in newspapers or eleswhere, and give him some sense of what lawyers and judges have to do.

Readers show be aware that this book, while a good introduction to the frame of mind of a U.S. jurist, is not intended to be a comprehensive introduction to the U.S. legal system.

I was advised to read this book before I enter law school in the fall, and I'm glad I did. I knew little about torts, contracts, and all other aspects of introductory law before this book (I still know little, but know more than before). Feinman writes well and easy to understand. He explains the concepts and theories behind the law and fills almost every page with real life examples from previous cases. This is an excellent read even for those not going to law school. The laws and theories governing our everyday lives are contained in simple format here in this book. You can't afford not to read this book.

I'm not an attorney, nor do I plan to attend law school. Nevertheless, this book is a sophisticated, but highly readable introduction to the law. Executives from all industries who need a legal primer should start here.

My 1929 edition has always looked old, the pages were yellowing, and the oval portraits of the poets seemed outdated. I have had this old favorite on my bookshelf since childhood.

Over the last month I again read all 101 poems, rediscovering poets and poetry that I had nearly forgotten. Cook's compilation is a historical snapshot, one made before the Great Depression, WWII, the Cold War, Vietnam, Civil Rights, the fall of the Soviet Union, and the US, as the only super power, faced with global terrorism.

America was still fairly youthful in 1929; the Civil War had ended only 64 years before. Possibly reflecting our confidence in our American spirit and our sense of manifest destiny, this anthology includes a remarkable number of American poets. Some are no longer familiar, but their poetry sheds light on an earlier America, one that inhabited a less complicated world.

One-third of the 'famous poems' belong to just twelve American poets - William Cullen Bryant -2 poems, Ralph Waldo Emerson -4, Eugene Field -3, Oliver Wendell Holmes -3, Vachel Lindsay -2, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow -7, James Russell Lowell -2, Edwin Markham -2, Edgar Allan Poe -2, James Whitcomb Riley -2, Edward Sill -2, and John Greenleaf Whittier -3. I did not recall the names Field, Lindsay, Markham, or Sill. But I clearly remember as a young boy being fascinated by the paradox in Eugene Field's 'The Duel'.

Surprisingly, Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman rated only one poem each. The then contemporary poets Robert Frost, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Edgar Lee Masters, and Carl Sandburg each have one poem.

Another one-third comes from 15 noted English poets (9 with multiple selections) - Elizabeth and Robert Browning, Burns, Byron, Gray, George Elliott, Leigh Hunt, Keats, Kipling, Milton, Sir Walter Scott, Shakespeare, Shelley, Tennyson, and Wordsworth.

The poets that created the final one-third 'famous poems' are fascinating in their anonymity. I simply did not recognize Lieut. Col. John McCrae, Henry Holcomb Bennett, Edmund Vance Cook, George Washington Doane, Sam Walter Foss, William Ernest Henley, Mary Howitt, Sergeant Joyce Kilmer, Winifred M. Letts, Clement Clarke Moore, Thomas Buchanan Read, and Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

Their poems, however, were not entirely strangers: But let me live by the side of the road and be a friend of man - We shall not sleep though poppies grow in Flanders Field - a poem as lovely as a tree - Laugh and the world laughs with you - I am the captain of my soul - Will you walk into my parlor?, said the spider to the fly - The Night before Christmas.

Many poems reflect the virtues of honor, commitment, respect of God, patriotism, honesty, perseverance, courage, respect for others, and loyalty. William Bennett would approve. Others are playful and simply fun to read. Lay this old, outdated collection next to your favorite chair. It's great reading. You won't be disappointed.

This is a wonderful book with poems from some of the greatest masters of all time! A++++++

I just bought this book, in search of some classic poetry, and haven't been able to put it down. My favorite is "The Highwayman" by Alfred Noyes, but there are certainly many more that I found moving and clever, such as "The Spider and the Fly", and "Home." This is a great first step into the world of poetry, and I can now honestly say that I am hooked!

This book is a stunning compendium of the range of life forms found on our planet. Margulis and Schwartz describe it as "a catalog of the world's living diversity." It is a vividly descriptive assortment of selected examples from the Five Kingdoms of life formulated by R.H. Whittiker. The authors stress how much new knowledge, particularly in the study of unicellular life forms, has been gained in recent years. They explain how classification identifies organisms and show how modern techniques have led to the expansion of life's kingdoms from two to five. A description of prokaryotes and eucaryotes is given, followed by the body of 92 phyla descriptions. The book is arranged to be either studied as a reference or browsed as an introduction to biological forms. Each entry is carefully organized with the type of information [environment, measurement scales, diagrams] in a consistent location.

However, this is more than simply a collection of illustrative examples of various organisms. The most fascinating chapter relates the authors' proposal to modify one of the standard classifications of life - the Protoctists, replacing Whittiker's Protists. "The Kingdom Protoctista is defined by exclusion," they state. "Its members are neither animals, plants, fungi nor procaryotes." Their common characteristics are nucleated cells, some kind of flagellum and live in an oxygenated atmosphere [unlike many unicellular forms which cannot tolerate oxygen. Their argument contends that many multicellular forms are more
directly related to these unicellular forms than they are to other multi-celled organisms. The new classification "also solves the problem of blurred boundaries that arises if the unicellular organisms are assigned to the multicellular kingdoms." They list 27 phyla [of 36 total]with diagrams exhibiting a range of bizarre structures and life cycles.

Another noteworthy entry is Trichoplax adhaerens. Remember the name of this creature - "it is the simplest of animals." Composed of but a few thousand cells, it is a dull gray body just visible to the unaided eye. In looking at the photo and diagram of this creature invokes a sense of wonder - this is, after all, a distance relative living in the nearest aquarium with the shad.

This book is a delight to browse following one of the authors' intents. Their second purpose, using this book as a reference, is even more admirably met. Clear photographs coupled with excellent diagrams, including typical environments of the selected specimens, add visual support to a readable text base. Any reader interested in the way life is structured and seeking insights into evolutionary development would do well to consider this book. It's not an academic text, but conveys a wealth of meaningful information.

Although this is primarily intended to be an illustrated reference guide, it's a surprisingly fun one to thumb through. Part of that is the delight of looking at pictures and illustrations of some truly strange organisms (science fiction writers should really buy this book to see what genuinely alien creatures are like), but also due to the plethora of interesting facts.

I know that when I was reading through the section detailing the Animal phylla, I was struck by how many creatures -- entire phyllums -- get along without even rudimentary brains (or digestive systems, respiratory systems, circulatory systems, or even organs, altogether, in some cases). Likewise I was surprised to learn that only two phylla (including our own) ever developed winged flight.

The sections comprising the non-Animal kingdoms were of particular interest to me mainly for the simple reason that they invariably get little attention from most texts. At best, you'll usally find a chapter dealing with micro-organisms as a whole, and a brief chapter on plants. To see how much sheer diverity there is in just the Fungus kingdom is eye-opening.

I will note that the book does assume a basic level of biological literacy and that it sometimes throws jargon at the reader with little warning or explaination but, as a whole, this is a very accessible work and well worth having on one's shelf.

At first, a person like myself might seem somewhat hard to convince that all the 100's of thousands of species on the planet can be divided up into just five kingdoms or "Groups." However, by the half way mark I could not only see how this is true--more importantly I could understand--and agree with the author. What this truly gifted scientists has done is to "break down" the walls of convention and show people (even myself) how it all really worls. Lynn Margullis is the worthy sucessor to Charles Darwin. Period.