This is a great little book. I love Usborne books! HOWEVER, I discovered the hardbound volumes of Usborne Book(s) of Science Activities. For the price of two of these little paperback books you can get three books in one in the hardbound book The Usborne Book of Science Activities Volume Two by Helen Edom, Moira Butterfield, Rebecca Heddle and Mike Unwin. This volume includes Science in the Kitchen as well as Science with Air and Science with Plants.

The controversy of this book was the "death bed" confession of William Casey Woodward claimed to hear, that Mrs. Casey said never could have happened, since Woodward was never left alone with Casey in his hospital room. I thought, would Woodward lie? at the time of this book's publication. Having read SILENT COUP, a big part of which documents Woodwards monstrous lies when covering Watergate, I now believe Mrs. Casey. That slices the value of this book to nothing. (But read SILENT COUP, preferrably the paperback version with an "update.")

Anyone interested in the Iran-Contra issue should have read this book. But the title, is a bit misleading. Woodward focuses too much on the Iran-Contra issue (and superficially at that) to the detriment of other CIA and DoD paramilitary/covert activities during the era of the 80s.
Furthermore, the way Woodward wove himself into the storyline would lead one to believe that he was a key character in the whole Casey-era saga. Fortunately, this is hardly the case.
Nevertheless, the book is a good review of the key players at the macro-level who were creating policy. Of note, the interaction between Goldwater and Casey is enlightening.
If you really want to get to the meat of CIA/DoD secret activities during this era, Steve Emerson's "Secret Warriors" will provide far more insight into the covert activities of the 80s.

I am a big fair of Woodward, so much so that I would even consider reading his shopping list. With that said I will give him a little slack on the Casey deathbed revelations. I think if the author would have know the level of scorn he has received concerning the "Casey confession" he may have used a tape recorder.

Overall this book gives the reader some very interesting stories about the Regan years and his use of the CIA. The reader of any book covering a review of a set of government policies that had a very firm stamp of approval or even the direction of the President will always fall on side or another on if the book is a truthful and "shocking" exposé or a "political bias hatchet job". I think that is one of the fun things about this book, no matter what side of the argument you are on; you will experience some emotion while reading this book. If you are also very interested in this subject it is interesting to go back into time and read his review and then compare it to some of the new facts on the subject.

Overall, this is another Woodward book, well written and constructed, very detailed and full of a lot of conversations that make you feel that you are involved, not just page after page of monotone lecturing. I wish he spent a little more time on footnotes so that the reader could be a better judge to the research he puts into the book and the sources used. If you like Woodward, you will love this book. If you have leanings to the left then you will have a lot of "you see" stories to tell, and if you are a strong Reaganite then you will be happy with the strong effort described in the book to defeat the USSR.

This plot (I use the word loosely here) had more holes in it then the cheese from the same country. Ok so the details are correct, the only reason I kept plodding through this one, and it is just that he did not use the details to any great effect. The writing here was very forced and not fresh, almost like a bad high school history book. I have heard some good things about this author but I either picked up the wrong book or there are some people that have some explaining to do to me. Where do I go to get a refund?

I'm a big fan of Erdman and recently got all the books I have not read yet by Erdman. This is the worst book I have read by Erdman. I guess if you are fascinated by WWII history and like reading a history book versus a novel, then this book may be for you. Erdman usually mixes in the appropriate amount of historical detail in his books, but he mixed in too much in this book.

Erdman is a man of many talents. But it seems like his fictional writing talents were diluted in order to make room for some pinches of historical data. It's not a ponderous read nor a fact-o-rama. In fact, he does do a good job keeping everything fairly easy and balanced for the reader. It's just that he usually does better.

I ordered the Visual Quickstart Guide with high hopes. It seemed a concise and easy to understand tome for understanding MS Office 98 for the Mac. Concise yes; maybe too concise.

I've been struggling with the outline features in Word. I hoped that the book would neatly lay out how to make an outline. Nope! Nary a mention of outlines in all of the Word chapters. Frustrating. My simple Claris works made beautiful outlines, easily, quickly, and that software was free!

Maybe it's just Office 98 that is a poor product. It makes many tasks harder and more frustrating than they need to be, with MANY more steps than older word processing programs, including Word 6.0. This book didn't help to dispel some of the above problems because it didn't mention how to properly perform them.

In all fairness, the book is great if you know little about Office 98 and you really do just need a "Quick Start" guide. That's all it is and it's nothing more.

I'm probably going to invest in one of the huge, dumbell weight Office 98 books so that I can really learn all the things I need to know to wring the most out of this frustrating software. I think MS has over-engineered Office 98. It does too many things for you! (yes, too many) And it makes others, like outlines, way too complicated.

That brings up another shortcoming of the book. It tells you how to do something to an already existing document, paragraph, or work in progress. For example, I don't want to turn a paper into an outline. I want to make it an outline from the first line. The book never addresses this task. It only shows you, BRIEFLY, how to add bullets or numbers. Why not just simply show us how to do an outline in Word from the beginning of the document? Is that too difficult? Once again, my basic Clarisworks (now Appleworks) did a better job, simply and effectively. I don't make outlines frequently, but being a student means I make them often enough for presentations, papers, proposals etcetera that I want a quick, slick way to make them. This outline problem is but one example of a simple oversight by the book's authors, and a testament to the bloated nature of Office 98.

I'm disappointed in the book and the software. And I was born and raised only miles from Microsoft! Viva Bill! (ha ha)

If you need a guide to MS Office 98 for your Mac, save yourself the headache, get one of the BIG, comprehensive ones. I'm going to.

-Cary W. in Seattle

This book is below average for several reasons:

1. The math questions are very limited in scope. They only cover areas that are introduced in the book.

2. The critical reasoning questions are terrible. They don't cover the question types the official GMAT guide covers.

3. Numerous errors in their answers. A lot of answer reviews have remarks like "that's the best choice" and no real explanations following it.

This book is a poor study aid for several reasons. First, while the cover says that it has been complete updated based on GMAT CAT, it has not. It's still very much oriented to the obsolete way of taking GMAT. For example, at the end of each practice exam instructions say you can go over your answers - WRONG! CAT doesn't allow this. Second flaw with this exam is the most damming. The exam questions are not reasonable representations of what you would see on the real GMAT. These questions are far simpler and do not seem to have the range of difficulty that I have seen on the real exam questions.

In short, I would recommend getting something else, preferrably a software program that's directly oriented to the CAT.

The mistake is that the tests aren't computerized tests. That means they have limited value for GMAT prep since the GMATs are only available as GMAT CATs since 1998. The GMAT CAT is a computerized test that is taken on a computer instead of the old paper-and-pencil format this is based on. You can get CAT books or download GMAT CATs from the net.

The windows help screens are better and easier to use.