Weaving the variegated stories of a cast of characters, "The Exquisite Corpse" is a surreal tale of loneliness that paints vivid episodes, but doesn't seem to give a sense of wholeness, of completion to its tapestry. It's a bit like the energetic style of William Burroughs, but without the cohesion (for lack of a better term) his books contain. Yes, "The Exquisite Corpse" is quite fascinating and compels the reader on, but by the final page, the reader watches as the story flits away without leaving any imprint in the reader's mind. The novel is #78 of the 100 Best Gay and Lesbian Novels.

I've read three books called Exquisite Corpse and they have all been excellent. This one was a little wierd and slightly hard to follow but it was an incredibly creative yet somehow realistic portrayal of the life some of the less fortunate in fates tend to lead. I intend to read every book called Exquisite Corpse that I can find.

HRH fans - stay away! This is a very, very poor book, with no additional revelations about The Man. This is an exercise in fawning. Skip it, and wait for the HRH movies that rumor has in development at several Hollywood studios.

This book has come under heavy criticism for not covering any new ground (both authors have written about Howard Hughes before). That may be so (the large biblography indicates the extent to which Hughes life and death has already been dissected). However, outside of America there is less of an obsession with Hughes; so if this is the first book you have read on the subject (as is the case with this reviewer), it is actually pretty entertaining - and that is how it should be read: as entertainment rather than heavy-duty information.

Phelan and Chester, after giving a reprise of Hughes' life and death, plunge into an analysis of the chaos he left behind: no will, not much idea of how much money was in the estate, no list of assets, not even a clear place of legal residence. The person press-ganged into the role of fireman was William Lummis, a lawyer and cousin of Hughes.

In ways that only Americans can manage, the determinaton and settlement of Hughes' estate was the subject of an avalanche of litigation and bizarre claims, as a parade of fake wills and fake relatives appeared and then were removed from the stage by a large hook. In fact, the outright looniness of some of these claims makes for the most entertaining aspect of the book, although they were perhaps not much stranger than Hughes' own life.

Lummis gradually managed to consolidate the estate: the last big struggle was with the IRS. The estate (under a billion dollars; the figure varied depending on how and when it was calculated) was eventually divided amongst Hughes retainers and employees, his relatives, and the bulk (after tax) going to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The HHMI had been set up as an elaborate tax dodge, but it eventually managed to rebuild itself as a genuine philanthropic and research organisation. So Hughes (as one commentator noted) did leave a useful legacy after all - but probably not what he expected.

This book might not add much to the pool of knowledge about Hughes, but for those to whom the subject! is fairly new ground, The Money is a pretty good read.

If you have read Bilbo's racist tract, and if you know much about what he did while Governor of Mississippi, then it's very clear that this book is a stratetic attempt at whitewashing Bilbo. To take one example, Morgan says that Bilbo's reputation outside the south "was almost totally molded by a universally hostile Mississippi press" (57). Um, no. For one thing, just how would the outside world be influenced by the Mississippi press? More important, his reputation was hurt by what he said and did--like his obsession with sending all African-Americans back to Africa.

(What he says about the Nazis, and who he cites in his book, are enough to damage any reputation, especially since his book came out after the war--and if you really want to see why he had the reputation he did, just look at his Senate speeches.)

The book is good on the things that Bilbo did to try to help poor whites, and it is thorough on showing his strong support for the New Deal (and, as it turns out, that's Morgan's single criterion for assigning the term "liberal"). But it's really bad when it comes to race (even to the point of mis-summarizing Chafe's book on southern civility).

It's too bad that the book is alternately offensive and embarassing any time the topic of race comes up, because a really good book that talked about why there were so many racist liberals in the thirties and forties (Coughlin, Long) would be really interesting. This isn't that book.

Who knew there was more to Mississppi Senator Theodore Bilbo then his racist tract "Take Your Choice: Separation or Mongrelization"? In what would certainly give liberals fits, this book proves that Bilbo was much more then a southern racist. He was, in fact, one of the biggest supporters of FDR's New Deal in the entire country. Even when the rest of the southern Senators turned on FDR, Bilbo stayed loyal. Bilbo supported every piece of New Deal legislation except one. Not bad for a "hater". While the book is sparse in personal detail, it makes up for it with extremely detailed accounts of the political battles Bilbo fought. He chased Huey Long out of Mississippi politics and held his own against hostile forces within his own sphere of influence. It helps to know something about 1930's politics before you read this book. Can you tell I liked it?

Fairly decent, however there are some big pieces of misinformation. For example in a picture caption it states that the Oliver 2050 and 2150 had Cat V8 engines. Anyone who knows anything about Olivers knows it was the 2255 with Cat engine. Also a caption of JD tractor says it is a 5010 when it has a row crop front end? Nice pictures and short company history for each of the companies. Just be aware that not all of the info is gospel.

Graham Chester examines the 20th Century phenomenon of mass killers, focusing on the one-day rage killers rather than the serial types. Cases such as Charles Whitman, James Huberty, Julian Knight and Marc Lepine are explored in depth. Chester believes most killers fit a pattern of gun-obsessed ex-military misfits who came from homes of doting mothers and absent or abusive fathers. While the psychological profiles are thought-provoking, Chester can't resist shooting bullets of his own at the likes of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, implying they are somehow indirectly responsible. Political ideology aside, this is a good read which will keep most true crime readers absorbed with both the details and the background behind some of the world's most shocking shooting sprees.

This is a preety good book. I know it can have better details. All of his other books are great! I just love them!

If you are reading these for enjoyment, you just might be in luck. With the modernised spelling, the plays are a little more fun, but they do lose some of the their scholarly merit. The original language gives us more insight into the times and the original purpose of the plays, but this gives modern readers a road to the mystery plays.

We have used Essential guides in the past and have found them to be easy to use and containing good information. They are compact and slim and therefore fit easily into your coat pocket. However, I found the Essential Rome book to be a disappointment. I like the top 10 section of the book. But in the Rome book I found myself asking why a couple of the sights where listed in the top 10 and others not. Also, I found the map to be very small and diffucult to read.

This book superficially covers the operations of the commerce destroyers of the Confederate State Navy during the American Civil War. For an historical work, this book is poorly organized. It bounces all over the place when it should have maintained chronological order. Moreover, the events discussed appear to have occurred in limbo. There is very little attempt to place them in context with other events of the period. Coverage seems accurate, but I would have liked to have seen a bit more depth. Sources are first rate and the the work is well documented.

I met Chester Marshall in the O'Club at Barksdale AFB in Louisiana. Before I knew it, two hours had passed. I read his book to get a better understanding of what that generation went through to save our way of life. His book is very acurate and thorough because he kept a journal throughout his service. He does great credit to the memory of many brave men by chronicling their service, their hardships, and for many, their ultimate sacrifice. The American spirit comes through as he tells of his crew, crew 25, as they proceed through B-29 training and eventually arrive in Saipan in time to participate in the first strikes against the Japanese homeland. The missions are long and dangerous, with no room for error. Their time between missions is spent trading for materials and building a meager habitat. They survive 30 combat missions and return to the states in June of 1945. You know enough about each of the members of crew 25 to feel their anxiety, their pain, their sorrow, and eventually their joy. And the amazing thing is that after all they did, when the war was over, they went home and got on with the rest of their lives. Truly the greatest generation.