This latest book by Rorem is a desperate attempt to continue reporting on his witty and sometimes scandalous life. However, the wit is trying and desiccated. Further, what Rorem now hopes we will find scandalous has more to do with his disdain of the words "pundit" or "grunge" than anything truly controversial. One can't blame Rorem; his lover's illness and decline was probably devastating. He might have done better to wait until he had some time to heal. LIES is more a study of a fraying and distracted man than a heartfelt account of fame and death.

This was my first exposure to the writing of Ned Rorem and perhaps because of this, I found "Lies" to be thoroughly readable. Yes, there are moments when he does come across as a sort of whining name-dropper; but there are also times when he sheds light on dying, relationships, music, composing and the like that make it a worthwhile read.

As far as actual literary value goes, I won't even comment ... the other reviews to this point seem accurate on content, having not read other Rorem it may or may not be so that this is below par, and frankly, upon getting into the book I wasn't paying much attention to all of that so much as, getting towards the end, the on-the-spot accounts of watching a loved one die. Perhaps it's voyeurism, but, to me the raw honesty in that alone made this book if not entirely riveting, definitely worth reading.

After third time reading, purely in the angle of fact finding, couldn't help to add this view. In chapter 19, too much assumption is made on the similarity of monohull and catamarans, when it's not. With the growing popularity of catamarans, many beginner and small builder will attempt to cash in on this idea, DON'T EVER! The complexity of a catamaran is way beyond the scope of this chapter. When the hulls split their own way in the mercyless sea, no amount of investigation, debate, and effort can bring the death alive. DO NOT attempt a catamaran without formal training. This chapter should not be written at all! This chapter do not deserve any star rating at all, but there isn't such option in the review.

I have recently read (and bought) few books about boatbuilding and desing and this book has been most fruitless so far. First of all
it is VERY short for the topics it covers (only a bit over 200 very, very short pages) and hence none of the topics are discussed in detail. Anyone who is considering of building his/hers own boat will probably want to read all books of the subject, since there aren't too many.
There is however much better books for this subject. From early 80's there is "Fiberglass Boatbuilding For Amateurs" By Ken Hankinson which is much more profound text of fiberglass boatbuilding. It is out of the print (I think) so you need to find it used.
This book is only one that is in print and covers fb boat building in practice (at least only one that i know). So If you can't find Ken Hankinsons book, this works as poor substitute.

This book will give the information needed to build a quality boat but the craftsman must have basic knowledge and good skills. I have been a shipwright for more than 40 years and still learned from this book. I don't believe it is, or was even intended to be, the last word on boat building but it is well worth reading regardless of your talents. Add this to Mr. Edmunds Designing Power & Sail and the reader will be well on the way to a complete understanding of design and construction.

For a potential boat buyer the bonus is learning what makes a well or poorly constructed boat.

One cannot take seriously an author who -- incredibly -- reproduces a work by CHAGALL and attributes it to Dali! That's exactly what occurred in this book. No more needs to be said; pass this one by. Or buy it as a curiosity??

First, I am obliged to say that the above review by Chimera is inaccurate. This book does reproduce an illustration by Chagall, but it is clearly labeled and attributed to Chagall with a paragraph upholding Chagall as the thematic antithesis to Dali. I'm a librarian and have placed this book in our collection. It represents a good value in that it has quality full-color reproductions of 100 of Dali's works and provides excellent, readable commentary on each work and on the phases of Dali's long career. I would reserve a fifth star for a higher quality coffee-table style book from Phaidon or Abrams, but this book is a very fine introduction to Dali for a very nice price.

This book would better have been entitled "Deviant Irish Women." This is no children's book, as a quick glance at the graphic and gruesome illustrations prove. More horror than history, its stories of greedy, murderous women are not for readers interested in women and their roles in Irish history, but for those interested in gory, almost misogynistic stories about the most irredemable women Irish history has to offer.

Following the tradition of great Irish storytelling, Lenihan fills these pages with the sense and magic that creates the best of what adult Faerie tales have to offer. Highly recommended to anyone who gets a real kick out of chilling humor.

This book contains information that was probably more relevant when it was first written. Most is passe by today's standards. The links referenced in the book for the support site, and that for a shopping cart are both dead.

Gosh! I found this book useful and am amazed at the flames of other readers. I found information here that none of the other (Que, Sams, Wrox, etc.) books had. For example: Mailto, Submit-it. In this it solved some problems for commercial pages I had developed that I could not (repeate could not) find in any other book (or even the news groups). The only reason I graded it down was due to the organization. There I do agree with the other readers. It would seem that this book was rushed out the door to print.

Laura Lemay's book,Creating a Commercial Web Page is good for starters and corporate business' interested in learning the basics and creating new ideas for web pages. As a beginner the set-up presents simple instructions and helpful tips to continue changing web page from time to time.

This collection is a travesty indeed. Great poems no doubt, but abysmally read. Furthermore they should have put all the introductions together separate and apart from the poems. It's nice to hear intros the first time around. But who wants to hear the intros everytime you listen to the poems? Sometimes I want to hear just a stream of poetry without any interuptions and this format makes that impossible. It's incredible that such a great concept could be so terribly executed.

I could not get this back to the store for a refund quickly enough. While the poem selection is great and the poem introductions are narrated well, the choice to use "modern poets" as the readers made this compilation utterly unlistenable. The only one that I found acceptable was Anthony Hect--the others were notably bad. In particular, I found Jorie Graham's "readings" to be abysmal. She reads each poem as if it were simply a string of unconnected words, giving equal stress to each, with halting pauses between them, never breaking out of a drowsy monotone. Other readers were not much better.

There are three major flaws in the readings:

1) The readers are no better than the average untrained person, and often much worse. (You've just got to hear them for yourself to appreciate how bad they are.)

2) Successive poems by the same poet are read by different "readers." It's jarring to hear 3 or 4 poems from Poet X, each in a wildly different voice.

3) No regard is given to matching the sex of the poet and reader. In general, it is really annoying to hear your favorite poet read by the wrong sex. In particular, making this mistake on "gender specific" poems (like having a woman read Poe's "Annabel Lee") is unforgivable.

Why is this all so upsetting? Because it is practically impossible to find poetry collections on CD, making this a serious waste of limited resources. If you are looking for a good collection on CD, buy "81 Famous Poems CD" by Audio Partners (ISBN 0-945353-82-0). It's a good collection on two CDs and is read by professionals: Alexander Scourby, Bramwell Fletcher, and Nancy Wickwire. In the meantime, we can only hope that the producers of this collection will eventually come to their senses and re-record the poems with the services of trained professionals.

If you are prepping for the GRE in literature or are trying to gain a basic understanding of literary periods and poets, this audio-collection is a must. It features a brief introduction about each poet's life. It also includes a brief introduction about the theme of each poem. The fact that you have to listen to these introductions before listening to the poem inculcate the poem and aids retention. If literature has turned into a cumbersome and overwhelming task, this collection will not only provide you with a sense of direction but will also make literature far more pleasurable.

I was somewhat disappointed with the books information. Although I do market research for a small company I was looking for some helpful hints and frankly did not get that much from the book. The book is oriented twoards a retail establishment and while there were some good examples used in the book, they were not applicable to a manufacturing company. This book would be appropriate for someone about to start a business. The writing is simple to follow with some good suggestions for starting research but for a business searching for new markets or new approaches this would not be adequate.

Learn all about Wilson's foot fetish, the women he bedded, and the alcohol he consumed. Appreciate such sterling similes as "Wilson had an empirical, rationalistic mind, ready, like a ship with her steam up, to set out at once on the sea of thought." Wait for the paperback, and read it quickly

This book, originally printed in 1921, shows its age in its biases. Ancient Greece was the most prominent influence on Western culture? I guess the Torah/Bible, which originated in the Middle East, isn't something secular scholars know of or concern themselves with;many would refer to it as the basis for "Western" thought. They also rely on long-refuted racial categories, talking about how "Aryan" invaders molded Greece into something important. The book obviously has not been updated enough through the years in order to keep up with science. It also makes little attempt to study modern education, as current issues like vouchers and charters get overlooked. Not recommended in the least - there has to be a better discussion of the topic out there.

This book passed the time on a couple of long-haul flights recently. Written in 1970, the book definitely shows the mark of time and changes in society. The book's theme is the conflict between blacks and whites which was pretty hot in the 1960s but not nearly so bad now. The concept of a global war between powers based on the colour of the skin doesn't seem too likely today. The book does cover the generic subjects of racial hatred, first contacts with new races, and low tech people meeting high tech people reasonably well. I didn't get many surprises though. The book also suffers from being too short. For example, there is one chapter devoted to the political structure on Mars which could easily have been expanded on to add more depth. Typical charity-shop fare