Ian Andersen is an entertaining writer as well as a longtime high-stakes professional blackjack player. With his latest offering, "Burning the Tables in Las Vegas," Andersen has attempted to update his classic from the '70s, "Turning the Tables on Las Vegas," and make it relevant to today's game. The results are mixed. "Burning" is a good read for sure, with many fascinating vignettes about life in the high-roller fast lane, as well as quite a bit of useful information for pros on how to survive and prosper in an age of high-tech casino surveillance. But, all that aside, it still left me wanting. Andersen may write about blackjack with the entertaining talent of, say, a Bryce Carlson, but he lacks the solid mathematical knowledge of a Carlson, or a Wong, or a Schlesinger to back it up. For example, with his so-called "Ultimate Gambit," he is all too happy in the name of camouflage to reduce his edge to not much more than half a percent, and then throw even more ev out the window with fairly large bets at craps and other negative-expectation games. His whole approach smacks of a certain lack of appreciation for the harsh realities of variance and standard deviation. Don't get me wrong, "Burning" is a very good book, and I think serious bj players will find it enjoyable and useful, but in the real world of professional play--high stakes or otherwise--it laces in a little too much fantasy with the facts to rate five stars.

This book provides a rare glimpse into the life of a successful gambler. It is filled with real-life exciting stories. It was exhilarating for me to read about someone who can actually beat the casinos at their own game. While the casinos are plying Ian with fabulous suites and first class airfares, Ian is taking care of his casino contacts with thoughtful gifts. Who's hustling whom? The irony is mind-boggling. A real hoot! If you want to understand how the mind of a professional gambler works, this book is for you.

Absolutely awesome. Anderson understands the casino game very well. Just buy this book. That is all I can say.

Contains excellent discussions of cover plays, psychology, high rollers and other keys to be a pro.

Absolutley must reading.

James Moore has compiled a fantastic account of the earliest history, exploration, mapping, mining, politics and geology of the Seqouia - Kings Canyon National Parks area. This book, more so than any other that I have read on the Sierra, provides insights into the people, the origin of geographic names and the forces and interests that drove the people into the high Sierra region. A fascinating look at the barometric and surveying tools that were lugged to the top of the highest peaks is given and a historical account of the ever increasing accuracy of the maps and just how close the original estimates were. True to his profession, Moore then goes into an in-depth discussion of the current understanding of the geologic history of the region. This discussion will be a great interest to those with a casual to serious interest in geology and will provide a greater awareness for your next trip into the area. It held me, a retired geologist, captive and will remain on my shelf as one of my most treasured references.

Moore's book is the result of a lifetime spent studying and mapping the geologic structures of the Sierra. It is an incredible achievement and an important contribution to a detailed understanding of the geology of the Sierra for the amateur naturalist. As literature and science, it's a worthy successor to Matthes's Geologic History of the Yosemite Valley (USGS Prof. Paper #160). He includes terrific chapters on the work of the first scientists to study the range and then describes current knowledge about the creation of the Sierra: from the collision of tectonic plates to the retreat of the last glaciers.

As an added bonus, Moore includes an appendix with detailed geologic comments for stopping points along several roads and trails in the Sequoia-Kings area: Highway 180 from Clovis to Cedar Grove; Highway 198 from Visalia and over the Generals Highway; the Mineral King road; the High Sierra Trail from Lodgepole to it's intersection with the John Muir Trail near Mt. Whitney; and, the John Muir Trail from Mt. Whitney to where it leaves Kings Canyon in the Evolution Valley region, 100 miles north.

Although Moore concentrates his narrative mostly to the area of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks (where, as luck would have it, I work as a ranger), anyone interested in the geology of the Sierra would find this book useful for its explanation of the major granitic and metamorphic structures we see throughout the range. It's large format makes it unlikely you'd want to slip it into your backpack as a field guide. It's also probably of interest only to the serious amateur, though I think it's photos and organization make it accessible to a beginner who might just want to skim some of the detailed sections.

This is an excellent book! The geology portion is easily understandable for the layman, yet still interesting enough for the professional geologist. The great historical and geological infromation make this a wonderful resource for anyone spending any time in the Sierra Nevadas. If you have any interest in geology and history, and you intend to spend any time in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, then you really Need this book!

The field guide was very handy in learning the specific animals and plants I encountered in Arizona.

It is handy to go back and look up an plant or animal in the field guide after a trip - ie. many of my travels were difficult backpack trips and the field guide was left in the car to save weight!!

this is the one to take! Like carrying a park ranger in your backpack to help you know what you are looking at. Trees and wildflowers, animals of the land, sky and water, minerals, stars of the night sky. Increase your knowledge and understanding of the beautiful places you visit and your own backyard. Check out the Audubon Field Guides to Florida and other regions as well. Well worth the money. Lots of color photographs and well organized for easy use.

This is a delight to come home to after a walk or a trip to the river. I try to bring a wildflower home to check out in the book, and am never let down.

While it seems almost an impossible undertaking to include four very large states in one book, in fact the Range guide helps focus the book quite a bit.

As an artifact, the book is well made and should last some time.

We bought this book last summer when we took our two sons to Las Vegas. The guide was very helpful, it gives lots of detailed info such as parking, prices, hours of operation, and numbers to contact. My only "complaint" would be that it is almost TOO much information, they have so many things listed, lots of off beat places, that if you are going there for a short time (like we were) and want to hit just the "big" places, you have to weed through a lot of information to get it. They should have it organized better. But it is definatly worth getting.

I live 3 hours away from Las Vegas and never go because of my kids. I went recently to meet a relative for the weekend and fell in love with the city! Now I cant wait to take my kids...Ive booked a room for 3 nights in March and am looking forward to getting this book...I have the one for Southern California and use it all the time!

Great insights into a potentially overwhelming city! It was almost like I was there with Carol, at times! Call me a Stout-groupie! Great book! Great author!

I was fortunate enough to borrow an advance copy of this book from a reviewer who lives near me. I'm still going to buy this book. I want it for my personal collection so I can read it again! Nevada Bluff is absolutely amazing. I could not put it down! The characters are flesh and blood. They will stick with you long after you've finished the book. I saw people that I swear I know in real life. In fact, I've caught myself a time or two kind of looking at the people I know and wondering which of them know Grant Devereaux! Being a late-end Baby Boomer, I identify with the 1950s setting Mr. Devereaux uses in this story. He has really done his research! He has depicted Hollywood, Reno, and the 50s beautifully and accurately. This book is light and fun, and at the same time, it makes you think about people you know, situations in which we all find ourselves, and how when you least expect it, something or someone will enter your life and change it forever. Read Nevada Bluff. Hope springs eternal, and this just proves it.

Unlike many "romantic" stories, these characters are believable - real people with both faults and virtues - you care what happens to them. Even though the settings and people are so well described that you can easily picture each scene, it's the snappy dialogue that carries the story. You might not want to take this book along to the beach. You'll lose track of time and get sunburned!

One of the things I've found since I first bought this book is that you are tempted to pick it up and read it again and again. It's just as refreshing a second, third and fourth time. I've bought it for Christmas presents this year for new friends--and even for high school and college kids who are looking for something light and positive to read. Everyone I know who has read it say that they've learned something new and different about the 1950s and that it's nice to be able to read a beautiful love story that doesn't reek of sexual innuendo or downright graphic details. Rumor has it that the author is considering a series based on Jack and Margo. I think that's terrific, and I encourage him to do that.

It's hard to believe that this is this writer's first mystery novel! Lise S. Baker's style is very polished. Her extensive personal experience as a Private Investigator bring realism to this suspenceful insurance investigation of the death of a child in a Nevada Casino. It's one of those page turners that is usuall written by well established authurs. If the right Hollywood screen writer reads this one, it could actually end up as a big screen box office hit! As a Practicing PI myself, I was not only throughly entertained, but even learned a few trade secrets from a much more experienced PI, Ms. Lise Baker. I can hardly wait for the next advanture of Cal Brantley, a "new school" San Francisco, female PI.

Lise Baker's LOSER'S CLUB is an exciting foray into the world of the private detective. Her prose is evocative, her plot is intriguing and Cal Brantley, the main character, is a gem. A private investigator who solves problems with finesse and intelligence rater than fisticuffs is a welcome treat. Baker's background as a professional investigator is evident in the reality of her dialogue and her keen eye for detail. It's easy to see why LOSER'S CLUB won the St. Martin's 1998 Best First Private Eye Novel Contest. The hard thing is going to be waiting for the next Cal Brantley novel to be available!

The Loser's Club is a face-paced, witty read from start to finish! Cal Brantley, the female private investigator, is a smart, savvy and street wise P.I. with enough compassion to know how to handle any situation that arises. The dialogue had me laughing, and I couldn't help admire how Cal dealt with her fellow investigators, including the on-the-edge, ex-L.A.P.D. detective Denny Wickerstaff.

Cal's private life becomes intertwined with her investigation of the death of a young boy in a Reno casino, and the twists and turns in the plot kept me guessing. As I turned the last page I knew that I wanted more! I'm hoping I'll be reading more adventures of Cal Brantley - I like that woman!

Hats off to this new writer. Lise S. Baker is on her way and I can't wait for her next book!

I have read many books in the past few years, and even some debut novels, but none have struck a cord in me like Headlock has. It is a powerful and riveting story that grabs you by the heart and mind in only the first few pages. It is a simple story of two cousins finding the truth about themselves and their family out on the road to Las Vegas, but tucked into the simple storyline is dialogue that makes you smile and cry because it is so real, violence that shocks you, yet feels familiar in it's rage and characters that will be alive in your mind for a long time after you put down the book. For anyone out there who hates how much books cost these days, I strongly recommend this one because as soon as you finish it, you are going to read it again. Congratulations to Adam Berlin for debuting with a novel that impacts the mind, heart and soul. I look foward to reading anything he puts out in the future.

Adam Berlin's first novel, Headlock, is a riveting family drama of epic scope and proportion. It is an engrossing story of cousins traveling west to Las Vegas, the famed city of modern literary mythology. On the road trip through the heartland of America, family secrets are revealed, stories are recounted, and impending destinies contemplated. Headlock, above all, is the fascinating portrayal of its protagonist, Odessa (Dess) Rose, who weaves a first person narrative of both current adventure and three generations of Rose family history. Berlin has found a powerful voice in the mercurial Dess, a former college wrestler who describes a life filled with violence, intelligence, physical strength, and family demons. The character of Dess deserves a special place in the pantheon of modern literary figures, as Berlin has created in the personality of Dess a masterful and memorable blend of violence, brooding temperament, and rare intellectual and psychological insight. Gary Rose, the other main character is almost as compelling in contrast, a well-liked inveterate gambler with a winning smile, but who has lost control of his physical body. Headlock is a gripping adventure that explodes across the pages and can not be put down. The second half of the book has the most dramatic tension and palpable suspense as any I've encountered. From the cousins arrival in Las Vegas the reader is kept breathless and on the edge of his or her seat until the startling and unforgettable double denouement. Berlin's writing style is forceful, terse, and uniquely masculine. He captures the essence of a seemly underworld that is alien, fascinating, and at times horrifying to the rest of us "suits". Blackjack and gambling becomes a metaphor for the larger winning and losing in life, and in Berlin's hands, the stakes have never been higher. Berlin's writing style is a special blend of literature and action -- of the literary prowess of a Hemingway or Mailer and the feverish pitch and action of a Ludlum or Clancey. Yet, despite the latter comparisons to recent good story-tellers, make no mistake about this book -- it is not pulp fiction. It is a modern literary masterpiece of the highest intellectual order. This is one of the must read books of the New Millennium. Congratulations to Adam Berlin.

If this is Adam Berlin's first novel, I can only say that we have a lot to look forward to. The book reads like no debut. It is a tight narrative that shows Berlin is a master of the written word. There is nothing wasted here, not a word, not a phrase, not a sentence. Headlock is a well-crafted whirlwind through contemporary America -- the money, the violence, the loss of innocence. But this novel is not simply a good read. It's a heavyweight demanding its place within the best tradition of American literature. Witness this passage from p. 35: "He described the coil, the spring, ready for action as soon as it was touched, how it took on an energy of its own once it was put into play, and Gilmore told us that was how all classical tragedies began. Once the spring was set into motion there was no going back. That was fate. That was life. That was why Antigone never made it out of her play." Thanks to Algonquin and Berlin, the American literary tradition is clearly in good hands.

I guess I expected more than basically just a book of lists. Some better details, reviews, options, etc. would have made this a better buy in my mind. For example, the buffet listings just say dinner buffet, lunch buffet, etc. I would have liked to have seen examples of what types of items to expect or at least the typical number of items. A buffet with 10 choices is a lot different from one with 35 choices. Also, I wonder how much of the book will be outdated within six months. Still it is kind of fun to read about some of the great dining deals and it is small and easy to take with you on your trip.

I like the concept of the book, organizing a guide on cheap eats in Vegas; but when a book like this is relying so heavily on specials and prices, it will date quickly - as "777 Cheap Eats" is already beginning to prove. The concept would work better as a website, where Miss Tucker could update the material in a timely manner.

Bought the book after seeing a post from the author in a Las Vegas newsgroup. I spent a 3-day weekend in August with my family in Vegas. The [money] I paid for this book helped me to save... [money] on food for my family of 5. Great idea and looking forward to the 2003 Edition for my trip next year!

This informal history of Vegas entertainment is the best book on the subject, the product of a Vegas-phile's 14 years of reporting for the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Weatherford chose to tell the whole story of the city through its entertainers, and as history it feels exactly right. He's got the precise date that the first bare breast was uncovered in the city, as well as the cost of Liberace's wardrobe on the night of his debut. Nothing here about gangsters or gambling or byzantine Nevada politics, but who would think you could write a chapter about Frank, Dean and Sammy and make it as fresh as though you were sitting at the Dunes in 1959? In fact, the opening chapter--telling Frank's story one more time--is as fine a history of the Las Vegas showroom as you're ever likely to read. He then follows up with expansive essays on the origins of the Vegas lounge. (Louis Prima gets the major credit, of course, but he also remembers that Prima was preceded by the Mary Kaye Trio, which started the midnight-to-dawn style of improvisational lounge entertainment that would become a Vegas trademark until it was watered down in the seventies to the level of Bill Murray's "Saturday Night Live" lounge lizard singing "Star Wars.") Before the era of comedy clubs, but after the age of burlesque, Vegas was pretty much the only place for top comics to work, and Weatherford dispenses that history through the lives of what he calls the big three: Buddy Hackett, Shecky Greene and Don Rickles. What, no Joe E. Lewis? Weatherford actually convinced me that Joe E. does not belong on the list, mainly because he was popular with the Vegas founders but never that big a star to the public. One very helpful aspect of this history is that Weatherford has gone deep into the morgue, poring over old microfiche and faded yellow clippings, to show the ups and downs of familiar careers. (For example, he reproduces a rare ad for Elvis' April 1956 debut at the New Frontier, where he's third-billed. Second billing is Shecky Greene. And the headliner? Freddy Martin and His Orchestra!) I could quibble with some of Weatherford's choices. Tom Jones is a sidebar in the Elvis chapter, but shouldn't that be Wayne Newton? His chapter on showgirls is fascinating--going into the lives of such forgotten beauties as Lili St. Cyr, Dyanne Thorne (better known as "Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS"), Charo, Juliet Prowse and Mamie Van Doren--but it doesn't give enough credit to the hundreds of girls who have passed through the Tropicana's Folies Bergere, the longest-running show of them all. Still, there are so many gems that you can't stop reading. His section on TV stars who have tried to do Vegas shows--a list that includes Irene "Granny" Ryan, Monty Hall, Suzanne Somers, Mary Hart and Tony Danza--is devastatingly funny without being mean-spirited. And you can sense his genuine affection for such Vegas institutions as Ann-Margret, classiest of all the dames ever to hit town, and the Chairman of the Board. He also remembers the truly tragic characters like Totie Fields, Redd Foxx and Sam Kinison, without getting maudlin or melodramatic.

You'll read how a city evolved into a phenomena, what was lost, and why. You'll hear the real stories behind the gossip, the personalities behind the public personas, and, best of all, you'll meet the intriguing cast of characters who were there when the spotlight dimmed.

There is an underlying tone of regret in Cult Vegas, a sense that some of the best of a city has been lost forever. For those of us who remember the excitement of the 50's and the 60's, the question is an affirmation of our memories of the dinner showrooms and the performers who played the venue.

But this book is not a lament. It's a blast! Mike Weatherford's style is as fast-paced and dynamic as the culture he chronicles. The fact that he is a long-addicted student of the Las Vegas Strip entertainment scene and a reporter who has recorded events for a decade gives this author a solid overview of how and why a desert oasis grew into a mega entertainment center.

Don't miss this one. You'll find history in Cult Vegas, none of it boring. Great photos. Fascinating sidebars. If you are a Sinatra fan, a trivia guru, or just love good writing, this is one book packed with page after page of good reading!

I have just finished reading Mr Weatherford's book and am profoundly impressed with the style, content, and flow of his book. Having lived in Las Vegas in the early 1990's, I had a special interest in reading about the early days of the Rat Pack and many other entertainers and future stars who got their starts in Las Vegas. "Cult Vegas"is incredibly well-researched and is an easy and very fun read for anyone interested in Las Vegas!

As trite as it sounds, I was glued to this book from the very first line. The story moves swiftly, and the sense of restrained panic experienced by the family of the missing child feels authentic. The prose is clean and at times, quite beautiful. If I had children, I expect I would describe this book as nightmarish -which is a compliment. The author truly seems to have a keen understanding of the emotions her characters go through during their ordeal, and she certainly seems to understand the fine points of a search and rescue mission in the wilderness. It's an impressive book, let alone first novel.

I just finished reading Charlotte's book. Couldn't put it down. It is thoughtful, well-written, gripping, and has an extremely tight story line. Even the minor characters are well developed. Leaves one with lots of questions, what ifs, could ifs, should ifs, and thoughts---like a good book should. (I have recently read so many books that started strongly and ended as damp squibs that it was refreshing to read one that ends strongly.) I really recommend it.

The author of this book seems to have had perfect pitch when she created her characters. Every one of the variety of people in this story, the mom, dad, brother, grandmother, of the lost child, the searchers, etc. are believable, complex people. The dialogue is dead-on, and the conflicts are real. It was heartfelt without sentimentality. Very good novel.