The school of bodybuilding this book teaches is very outdated. Save your money! Don't buy this book. I was following the instructions in this book and I gained thirty pounds...in fat! That's right, it tells you to eat anything. You heard me, ANYTHING. In the old school way, the bodybuilder eats whatever he wants to gain mass and later on sheds off the fat through aerobic exercise. The problem with that is, during the rigorous aerobic training, much muscle mass is also lost with it. The new way of bodybuilding (which makes alot of sense) stresses to eat alot and eat LEAN while you train. It does offer some great exercises but nothing you can't get from other good weight training books.

Tom Platz is definitely ahead of everyone else in terms of intensity. I admire him for that. This book is very motivational but I feel that this book is more suited for competitive bodybuilders than beginners.

Victor Erofeev is a son of Soviet diplomats stationed for a long time in Paris where he had access to the forbidden fruit of uncensored reading and the attributes of western lifestyle. When he appeared in Moscow in the early perestroika smelling of French cologne, clad in unseen-before jackets, a frondeur almost untouched by the Soviet ideology speaking of De Sade and Celine it was only a matter of time for him to become one of the cultural newsmakers.

But he was not satisfied with the role of occassionally scribbling libertine, famous for the much-publicized debauchery and condescending lecturing on previously unaccessible authors. He decided that he is a writer and he got lucky.

He took the Russian Beauty's manuscript to one of the French publishing houses where Nabokov's grandson Ivan looked through the pages and told his secretary to bury the schlock. But the bad taste got the second chance to triumph. An American writer's wife got Nabokov's job to escape from the housewife's frustrations. The lady took the pulp from the wastebasket, looked through it and liked what she saw. The book was published in the West when anything Russian was the current rage. Perestroika...Glasnost...Remember?

Westerners consider Victor Erofeev a genuine article, a voice from Russia. And the fact that the text is full of these -"I stood on all fours and he entered me from behind" passages instead of the usual brooding and soul-searching expected from a Russian book hinted on some commercial possibilities.

And here in Russia we adore the compatriots whose art is acknowledged by the Western cultural establishment. The domestic publications were guaranteed.

So now we have the writer. And I do not know any real person who reads Victor Erofeev. I've tried, some of my friends tried - we all came to conclusion it's 100% garbage.

This situation is best illustrated with this anecdote: When asked for his opinion on the Napoleonic War hero, the Hussar poet Denis Davydov, Alexander Pushkin said: - Poets think he is a great soldier while soldiers think he is a great poet.-

I concur with the point about Victor Erofeev being "the best of the Russian writers working now".

I must also underline serious hidden layer deeply built into Erofeev`s aesthetics , which is not seen from short-sighted uninformed perspective - I speak of Erofeev`s version of ancient Byzantine tradition of Negative Eschatology , which taught us not to seek God , as being impossible to grasp with limited senses , but circling out the sphere of His absence instead ...therefore , if reader see only pornography in Erofeev`s writings - it means that such person is a candidate for inclusion into author`s gallery of funny monsters ...

I don't know for whom this book may have been written. For the Sapphophile, there are certainly more exhaustive and interesting books, some are which are noted in the bibliography at the end. Furthermore, for all the treacly editorial reviews about Ms. Reynolds's scholarly resources (which are certainly evident), she abuses them time and time again in two ways, one merely bothersome, and the other approaching dishonesty. 1.)She frequently truncates the passages from other authors just when they begin to get interesting. 2) She frequently selects works of literature, particularly poems, that may or may not have anything to do with Sappho and offers no solid evidence that they do. They are, I guess, Sapphic by association. Reynolds's association. The two most obvious examples are Shelley's "To Constantia, Singing" and Emily Dicknson's ""Heaven"- Is What I Cannot Reach!" To take the latter as a case in point, the poem is supposed to be Sapphic because of a three line Sappho fragment (#105) about an apple on the topmost bough. Need I remind everyone that there was another apple on a bough in another book that has a far more rich cultural history. And given that Dickinson's poem concerns "Heaven" and "Paradise," it seems a stretch, so to speak, to see the poem as influenced by the Sapphic fragment. Truth be known, I spent many more hours meditating on Ms. Dickinson's exquisite 15 line poem than I did in reading the rest of the entire hodgepodge of this book, though I plodded through from srart to finish.
So, my advice is to buy a book of Ms. Dickinson's poems or a more intriguing and honest study of Sappho. This book is just a non-starter.

I don't know what the previous reviewer is talking about; I loved this book. Granted, I am no scholar of Sappho. Although I have read various translations of her poetry in the past, I do not read Greek and cannot comment upon whether Reynolds' research is accurate. However, given her amazing previous work (editing Aurora Leigh, the Penguin Book of Lesbian Short Stories, etc.) I am inclined to trust her (and I like her writing style anyway).

For me, this book was the perfect introduction to Sappho. It includes historical background followed by many of Sappho's fragments in a variety of translations. But that's just the beginning: Reynolds goes on to show how Sappho has been imagined/created by literature up to the present day. She anthologizes a variety of poems, plays, and fictions inspired by Sappho. It is amazing to see how, though so little of her writing survived, she has remained a titaness in our imaginations. Each literary generation has reinvented and recreated her. Reading Jeanette Winterson's amazing story "The Poetics of Sex" (narrated by a modern-day Sappho) fills me with hope and joy at the potential for lesbian creativity that is Sappho's legacy. I also appreciated the inclusion of works of art depicting Sappho through the ages. Although they are in black and white, they are an exquisite visual touch to this beautiful volume (the cover art is amazing as well).

I urge you not to judge this book by one bad review. It is a book to be perused at leisure, to leaf through in times of anxious sorrow and contemplative joy. Buy or borrow a copy and judge it for yourself.

Thinly-disguised as fiction, this excellent book by Ms Naylor presents an unbiased view of the Amish lifestyle in America. She examines their belief system, traditions, morals, religious and social goals all in highly readable language. Enhanced by the captivating pen and ink sketches of George Armstrong, this book soon gives up the pretense of plotline, expanding frankly into non-fiction. A reader could almost drown in so much researched material, but a real Amish family could read this work without qualms, as their values are given without "English" prejudice.

Fourteen-year-old Simon Stolzfus prefers book learning to farming; why can't he take pride in the simple, homespun occupations which satisfy his brothers? For generations the male patriarchs have cultivated a strong sense of family and land usage in harmomy with Nature. Is it right for the youngest brother to keep Simon's secret? Naylor leaves us wondering at the end how Benjamin, the grieving patriarch, will handle the explosive situation of his son's flagrant disobedience. Is compromise possible or the death knell to century-old tradition? What happens when a small Society begins to wink at its own prohibitions? And what happens to Amish youth who can't--or won't--fit into the predetermined niche? The verdict is yours--will you decide for young Simon or for the venerable patriarch?

This book feels like Richard went on a vacation, and then wrote a book about it, making it seem like he was a big-time archaeologist.

How he did his 'archaeology' was he went to the houses of people who lived in the area who were selling stolen artifacts, and he photographed their collections...

Then, he condemns the action of those who 'stole' from the tombs, never once doing anything interesting such as possibly trying to illustrate WHY people who are incredibly poor might sell the only thing that America might want to purchase from them at miserable prices.

Because of the scattered nature of his concept, the images leap all over the place in time and provenience. However, he does include pieces that are not similar to anything I've ever seen before in any previous book on the Colima area which I have seen before (such as Hasso Von Winning's "The Shaft Tomb Figures of West Mexico", "Sculpture of Ancient West Mexico, Nayarit, Jalisco, Colima: The Proctor Stafford Collection", "Ancient West Mexico: Art and Archaeology of the Unknown Past").

However, because of the nature of his methods, it must be questioned, "Are the strange variations that are illustrated in this book authentic pieces?" In many cases, I would say yes, they are. In others, I would question that their style was typical of Colima figures of the area at all, and would question whether they had been faked since the 1600s (a very common thing to do), and are being shuffled off as originals from the houses to the gullible tourists.

He does have some interesting Bibliographic material such as the earlier Isabel Kelly "The Archaeology of the Autlan-Tuxcacuesco Area of Jalisco Part I and II" and Carolyn Baus Czitrom's "Figurillas Solidas de Estilo Colima: una Tipologia" both of which shed much more light than most books do on the solid-clay figurine pieces such as the Type IIIa "Figurines with a nice figure" pieces as defined by Kelly, the "Gingerbread Figurine pieces" (which his image shoves all into one pot, instead of separating them out as separate images / possibly with both a front AND a back shot).

All images are black and white except the frontpiece image, but are much better quality than oftentimes is seen in archaelogical books.

I would say that it is an interesting concept, that probably cost him lots of money and effort to do, but it comes off as being extremely unprofessional and in my own opinion, the pictures can't be relied upon to actually be authentic articles. Nor, is any new thing spoken of except a general whining about how 90 percent of all shaft tombs are now raided as if he went all the way there and all he got was this T-Shirt.

Bernie and the Bessledorf Ghost is very creatively written. I was dissapointed whenever I had to put the book down, because you're always wanting to know what happens the next time the Bessledorf Ghost visits the family in their hotel apartment.

This is the only paperback Italian-English dictionary with outstanding grammar help for the English speaker. It includes accents, which many others lack, but it's strongest point is the help it gives on irregular plurals, irregular verbs, and auxiliary verbs. Originally published in 1975, however, it is simply out of date. Italy is a dynamic, modern country, and the language is changing. Also, this dictionary is VERY British--sometimes I can't understand the "English" definitions!

Try instead the Italian-English dictionary from Oxford's Color Dictionary series. It's not nearly as helpful grammar-wise, but it is modern, has quite a few Americanisms, and is printed on much better paper.

This is a good starting point for someone who is planning a Dallas/Fort Worth trip. It includes info on the surrounding suburbs as well. The lodging section is lacking; room quality is seldom mentioned, and the information given is no more helpful than the hotel brochures. This is a "just the facts" guide; no author's opinions or insider tips.However,there are good maps and getting around hints.

Mercenaries travel to an isolated world to unravel the secrets of a deadly, living, alien tower.

I'll recommend this only for those who loved Revelation Space and/or Chasm City, as it works as a slightly off-key counterpoint to those two larger, better, wonderful novels.

At 111 pages, this short story can easily be read in a sitting, which makes it seem almost a trifle. Adding to that feeling, it also seems not quite as polished as Revelation Space or Chasm City.

Take the old "Indiana Jones" spirit of a quest to find something of unimaginable importance, throw in the premise of the indie flick "Cube" (in which several characters travel from room to room in a massive building, facing one deadly obstacle after the next), add in Reynolds' rather unique style of building a tale from his Revelation universe, and you've got an hour or two of fast, fun reading while you wait for his next, Redemption Ark (available for quite awhile in the UK, but not yet in the States 'till June).

The UK version of this comes w/ a 2nd short story called Turquoise Days, offering a nice tale w/ more information about the Pattern Jugglers. I'd actually recommend getting _that_ version...since T.D. is a better story than D.D.

Judith Brown writes an honest account of the time she and her husband ("Faranjis" or "foreigners")spent in Ethiopia. They were joined there by other U.S. citizens and Soviet workers in attempting to teach the native people improved farming techniques. Their difficulties were numerous: the Ethiopians' lack of interest in the project, their unwillingness to do the work required, lack of equipment and supplies and the less-than-desirable personal relationships among the project group. Except for her personal introduction to the people and culture of the area, the project seemed, to this reader, an exercise in futility.