The Beast of God grabbed me from the first chapter and wouldn't let go. Richard Wood's description of the main character's quest for his son was so real that I felt I was right there with him. His use of evil characters and mysterious angels was powerful. I can almost believe it could really be like that. Well done!

Michael Wood, the most elegant and enquiring literary critic of his generation, has also written widely on film. He is the author of books on Stendhal and Nabokov, and is currently writing a study of Proust. In other words, he is familiar and comfortable with Cultural Giants in a way most film critics and academics are not. This allows him to speculate and make seemingly random or wild connections on his subject with a confidence most film writers, slaves to theory and discipline, lack. This makes him the perfect interpreter of Bunuel, who needs such a suggestive approach, and whose critical star has fallen in the last two decades precisely because his work doesn't fit neat frameworks.

'Belle De Jour' - the story of frigid doctor's wife Severine, who loves her husband but can only find sexual fulfilment working by day in a brothel - inaugurates the period known as 'late Bunuel', when the old Surrealist had access to bigger budgets, big stars and glossy colour. Because these films lack the abrasive iconoclasm of his most characteristic work, they are usually described as 'serene', 'mellow', repentant; Pauline Kael suggests they attain the 'path to grace'. Wood argues 'both Severine and the film hide the world behind an image of the world. We only see what they see or show; but we know it's not all there is. There is a serenity in 'Belle De Jour' and in all of Bunuel's late films, but it is not his. It is the false and fragile serenity of the society he pictures'.

Wood suggests some of the ways Bunuel achieves this, in a gorgeously written study. He delineates the depth, subtleties and strategies of Bunuel's seemingly brusque and plain style. He discusses the brilliant actors - notably Catherine Deneuve, Michel Piccoli and Genevieve Page - and the importance of their screen personae to their roles. He shows how literally faithful Bunuel is to his source, Joseph Kessel's novel of the same name, and how radically he departs from its assumptions and form, transforming a traditionally psychological novel into an anti-character anti-narrative. The most brilliant section analyses the status of dreams, fantasies and memories in the film, and whether they displace the 'reality' of the film's fictional world, showing how Bunuel could claim to despise psychology (as a way of explaining the apparently accidental processes of the mind) and yet be devoted to Freud (as discoverer of the unconscious, 'one of the favourite playgrounds of accident'). He suggests that Bunuel replaces the reductive closure of a definitive resolution with a simultaneity of possible or alternative endings.

Readers will get the most out of the monograph if they have the film handy. Wood looks at the major sequences in some depth (the opening landau fantasy; the shoes-on-staircase hesitation outside the bordello; the burly Asian with the humming box; the central sequence in the Duc's chateau; all of Husson's scenes; the enigmatic concluding five minutes). He focuses on pertinent, missable details, attending to nuance, repetition and variation. Not only do you get a more profound understanding of the film, but Bunuel's method, as stubbornly withheld as his heroine's inner life, opens bit by bit. You become so focused on each scene, you notice things Wood left out, or didn't underline. It's a rare director or critic that empowers his audience with the tools to answer back. Bunuel and Wood are less interested in interpreting a world, a film, a book or a character, than the very act of interpretation itself.

Ben's Magic Gemstone is an old fashioned morality tale. It is a tale of magic set in "grandpa's time", before the modern magical venues of tv, cyberspace and jet travel.
It is a light hearted story of a young man growing up, growing old, and growing wiser. There are joyful moments, and some poignant times as well. The theme of magic is not predominant and/or overwhelming, a'la Harry Potter, but it is an integral plot element in this unusual little book.
As Ben, a schoolteacher, ages he learns that only careful, judicious use of his magic will result in happiness. This is a universal theme, in that we all may choose to wield our own brand of "magic" in ways that either harm or heal.
Ben's Magic Gemstone will appeal to young and old alike.

The "Benders" had a small, wayside inn near Cherryvale, Kansas. As travelers would stop by for a bite to eat, they would be seated in front of a curtain behind which "Kate Bender" would smack them on the head with a hammer. They would be robbed and their bodies would be dropped through a trap door in the inn floor. Later the bodies would be buried in the back yard. The travelers would just "disappear" and their families were unable to find them. About 50 people were killed before people started getting suspicious. The Benders discovered that they were under suspicion, and fled before they were caught. Local citizens unearthed the bodies and tried to find them but they were never caught. No one knows where they originally came from, or where they ever went. They are the first serial murders in the United States. It's been a few years since I read the book, but it is very interesting - and the original hammers are still on display at the Cherryvale Museum. There used to be a "Bender Museum" in Cherryvale with a display set-up with manequins just like the inn has been described. The museum has a bunch of information that has been collected over the years and Fern Wood serves on the Museum Board. The museum is only open on Sunday afternoons during warm weather. For further information contact the Cherryvale Chamber of Commerce. There have been several books written about the subject over the years, but this is the only book written that is still in print.

Ruth Wood has specialised in Leader's life and work and has compiled a comprehensive illustrated catalogue raisonne of all his known works. She regularly authenticates Leaders works for the major fine art auction houses and private collectors. This is an excellent specialised read for the lovers of Victorian landscape painting.

"The Best Possible Sawmill" was published in 1996. I regret that it took me until 2001 to discover this book, which could have been titled "The Best Possible For Profit Enterprise" as the book is a gold mine for any businessperson with P&L responsibility. Using the sawmill as a metaphor, the book explains The Profit Gap (the difference between a company's current and potential earnings) and how to narrow this gap and increase profit by using Linear Programming technology to guide a manager's decision making about what markets to compete in, what products to make and sell, and what vendors and business partners to use. I recommend this book to any person with P&L responsibility.

Treat colleagues as customers ,then smile and be helpful and supportive ,caring,innovator, sociable good listener, creative patient .

I checked out five books from the library on setting up a home shop from scratch. Even Norm has one. This one was the best by far of what I was looking for so I bought a copy. Although I don't have the same space available, I was able to utilize alot of the secrets from this book to make my available space much better.

I can't believe anyone else hasn't reviewed these books. I picked up Beyond the Deepwoods as a birthday present for my 12 year old brother, but then flicked through it, decided I wanted it, and read it in one night. The writing is wonderful - elegantly creepy and terribly evocative. Chris Riddell's illustrations are amongst the best I've seen, whether in black and white or in colour. I cannot rave enough about this book or the next two that I've read in the Edge Chronicles. Am on the edge of my seat waiting for The Curse of the Gloamglozer to come out.

I tend to enjoy childrens' books almost as much (often more) as adults', and these books have pride of place on my favorite bookshelf. Go read them now!

Beyond The Weapons Of Our Fathers by poet and essayist Edward W. Wood Jr. is a close and caustic study of the violence that has marked America since its war of independence, including the terrible toll of the Civil War down to conflicts still vivid in the memory of today's generation. An unflinching look at the intersection of violence and American History, culminating in a passionate call for a better future, Beyond The Weapons Of Our Fathers is especially timely reading in view of today's War on Terrorism and Middle East conflict with Iraq.