I cannot give a review of the entire book, as I have only read one of the short stories contained in it. I read the one entitled, "Rumpole of the Younger Generation." I felt like I was wasting my time, because all I was reading was a synopsis of a former triumph of this man. The case might have been exciting, but the author did not play fair, and the guilty party was obvious. I did not like this story very much, and can only hope that the rest of them are better than this one was.

The inaugural book in the Rumpole saga presents one of the great characters of British crime fiction. It's Holmes with humor (excuse me; humour), Bertie Wooster with brains. A collection of short stories, all revolve around Horace Rumpole, a self-described "Old Bailey hack". He practices (almost) exclusively as a defense barrister, specializing in hopeless causes, spouting poetry and cigar ash with equal gusto. The book provides the background for the accompanying series on "PBS", and it is at least as much a credit to Leo McKern's portrayal of Horace Rumpole as it is to author John Mortimer's skill that the stories--now contained in three massive omnibuses--have such deep appeal.

I expected to love this book as I am a big fan of Escadrille Spa 3 and had been hoping that someone would write a book about them for some time. However this book is rather dry and is pretty much a recitation of Groupe de Combat 12's combat logs in book form. It encompases all of the Stork squadrons, Escadrilles 3,26,67,73,103,167. I did enjoy it but only because it had info on a subject I was very much interested in. It could have been so much more. You don't get to know the pilots, there is practically no personal information on them. There are many rare photographs, and some nice drawings of aircraft in the back. And it does have a very nice cover. I do hope someone else has a go at this subject and writes the definitive book on the "Storks". There is quite a story there, classic triumph and tragedy. Perhaps Dennis Gordon?

Excellent book for those who likes a history of aviation. Contains histoty of Storks for every period of war, list of flying personnel, log book of flights. I enjoyed it.

Sometime in the late 70s to early 80s an anti-fat movement began to gain momentum, to the complete detriment of American health. Mr. Bailey along with Nathan Pritikin, Jane Brody, Dean Ornish, and many others (including that hyperactive woman who kept screaming: "Stop the insanity) became the gurus who have helped lead Americans into the state of health we are in today. Ladies and gentlemen, please read the statistics - Americans have never been so obese, not to mention the fact that type 2 diabetes, heart disease, cancer, etc. are increasing in this country. The "eat all you want", high carb/no fat/low fat solution may work (at best) if you workout maniacally, to the extreme on a daily basis (stop or reduce your daily workout and the weight comes back with a vengeance - EVEN IF - you are still following your no fat/high carb plan! Since the mid 80s I had tried to lose weight and keep it off by following this philosophy and I experienced short periods of weight reduction at best (it was always an unrelenting struggle). I would always gain the weight back faster than ever before - that is - until I got off the "fat free/low carb merry-go-round" and switched to the "Protein Power Program". I've lost the weight painlessly, gained energy, and only have to workout 3 to 4 days a week to maintain (I include free weights, and Pilates). It's hard to believe that after all these years the philosophy behind books such as this one continues to prevail. I only wish I could give this book 0 stars. Please check out the books by Drs. Michael & Mary Dan Eades, Dr. Atkins, and Dana Carpenter, and Dr. Diana Schwarzbein.

I'm not sure where I should put this book in terms of how good it is. Undoubtedly, it has some good advice and I would be lying if I said otherwise. At the same time, Bailey is off the deep end, which is fine if you too are off the deep end. But if you're only starting to get into a pattern of weight loss and healthy eating, this book is probably going to turn you away from that.

The fact of the matter is that Bailey has some good advice shrouded in inanity. If you eat cheese and crackers, chips, cookies, and honey roasted peanuts every night, you're not going to stop that completely and eat non-fat yogurt, non-fat cottage cheese, and ice cream once a year. It's just not going to happen. To think as much is pure folly.

The problem with this book, and every other diet book out there, is that they all say to do it now. Now now now. This makes little sense, since we have to consider the fact that any change is something we want to maintain for the rest of our lives. So, while yogurt and cottage cheese might be the ultimate goal, I think it's more effective to start with one small change at a time.

If you're not starting from scratch, but are trying to get a feel for how to hone your current healthy eating habits, this book is for you. This is precisely where I found myself and I think it did open my eyes to a few things. For instance, I think the anti-fat bandwagon is way, way overblown. But in this book, Bailey does make a good point that many of the foods that are high in fat are also very low in nutrition density. This is by far the best argument yet for avoiding things like cheese and honey.

Still, I think eating 1 bowl of ice cream a year is well into fanaticism. As is his obsession with fat. Cutting down is good. Avoiding it like it's evil is another thing entirely. In fact, it bothers me that Bailey seems to suggest that chemical substitutes are an acceptable way to avoid fat. That's a bothersome notion.

And really, why on earth would you be against pancakes? I eat buckwheat pancakes with fresh fruit and no syrup. Please explain to me why this is bad. Our psychotic fixation with directing unnecessary derision against one food is clinical sometimes. This book provides some serious examples of that.

Another thing I do not like is that portion control is not a goal in this book. He essentially admits that it's fine to eat like a slathering hog, just so long as you eat healthy food. I could not agree with that less. One of the problems we have in this society is that we cannot and will not control the amount of food we eat. If we ate reasonable amounts, there would be less of a need to consume 3 pounds of lettuce every night.

Having said that, I will reiterate that the content of the book is solid, in terms of what should and should not be eaten. Hey, let's face it, 24 ounces of steak every few days is going to kill us. Period. Eating foods high in calories and low in nutrition will fatten us, and leave us unhealthy, yearning for the nutrition our bodies require.

The concept of nutrition density is one that people should take from the book. We need nutrition, not calories. If we get ample nutrition then we're all set. If, however, we pile on the calories and lack the nutrition, our bodies cry for more food. And we give it more food, usually bad stuff.

So take the idea of nutrition density from this book. But leave the artificial substitutes there. And leave the notion that you can stuff yourself at every meal. Those are bad ideas, period. Eat a nutritious diet, learn portion control, and keep it natural and you'll do fine, even if you do eat ice cream (small portions) every night.

Worth the read, but beware of neurotic & poorly thought out advice.

At first I didn't get this book because of another reviewer's comments. But, I like Covert Bailey's books so much that I decided to go for it. I'm glad I did. There's different material here than in Smart Eating -- greater depth. The prior reviewer mentioned "Bailey units," which is not a concept in the book. I suspect the reviewer was referring to the target units used to analyze food for serving size, calories, and nutritional value. It's similar to other units, points, or exchange models. I found the target unit analysis very useful as a tool for checking up on how I'm doing. I've been very successful eating low fat and have lost 46 pounds, but a recent analysis of my eating using the concepts in this book revealed some room for improving the nutritional quality of my food. Someone new to the target concept might need to do more analysis at first to get used to the model. The circular target chart is a bit clearer in Smart Eating, but The Fit or Fat Target Diet doesn't have all those recipes. Great stuff for analyzing food quality.

I had great hopes for the new insights I'd get from this book, but it was like the author hadn't been to Marketing 101 and thought she'd figured out the virtues of direct marketing all by herself. Some interesting case histories and anecdotes, but was it worth the cover price?

Easy to understand, with real information, and a specific slant towards those targeting moms on the net. For those that say there are better markting books out there on the mommie market, I say 'maybe.' I highly recommend this as a basic place not only regarding 'why' but it really gives those working on the net some great 'how' info too.

This book contained many interesting examples of how companies are targeting the mom market. But what is most surprising is how many companies are missing the boat by advertising in a way that talks down to mothers. This book will open your eyes up to the potential of gaining a mother as a customer.

I started reading this book as I wanted to know about the O.J.Simpson trial. What do I get? Some Hollywood [stuff] about the author's schedule of dinner parties, at fashionable houses and restaurants and gossip; not facts about the trial. Am I supposed to be impressed by all the name droppings, self promotion and his invitations to posh houses? I'm not. Neither am I interested in Hollywood gossip. The guy is so [sad] trying to be with the "in crowd" that I felt quite sorry for him. I cannot believe how shallow the book is. ...This I believe, is a best seller, only because some Hollywood women, who have nothing better to do than give parties, go shopping and laze around, bought the book as they or someone known to them were in it. This is the first and the last time I read Dominic Dunne.

I'm appalled by the torrential name dropping which goes on in this book. It is all the author seems to be capable of doing.

Gus Bailey is a gossip columnist, a pathetic form of gutter sniper. But he pretends to be everybody's good old buddy, otherwise no one would contact him anxious to spill the beans.

The events surround the O.J. Simpson murder trial, or rather the rich and famous people around and about it. And what a shallow bunch they turn out to be. It is obvious that Dominick Dunne is the Gus Bailey character who strongly believes O.J. to be guilty of murdering his wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her companion Ronald Goldman.

The novel, if it can be called that, is narrated by a third person, but since there is much dialogue, such as, Gus said, "Blah, blah ..." I found it difficult to separate the first person from the third. It is too obvious that Dominick Dunne is the big "I" here. There is much plugging of books written by Gus Bailey, and wouldn't you know it they carry the same titles as those written by Dominick Dunne in real life. Everything is plug or drop throughout this silly book.

From time to time Gus says, "This would be a terrific scene in a novel..." or something like "I'll have a character say ..." or "... He's going to be a wonderful character for my novel ..." after he's already described relevant scenes in conversation with one of his many famous characters. Much of this is a device to circumnavigate the fact from fiction problem, but grates when said too often which is the case here.

The sheer audacity of the name dropping becomes lengthy and irritating, and the dialogue fails to carry any weight other than to further increase the length of the book. What's more, the corpus becomes bitty and lacks the coherence of continuity. The swath of "names" one stumbles through is enough to choke the mind, it's Kirk Douglas this or Nancy Reagan that or Marcia Clark or Michael Jackson or Hillary Clinton or Barbara Streisand or Warren Beatty or Dustin Hoffman or Sean Connery or Goldie Hawn or Elizabeth Taylor or Heidi Fleiss or Dan Rather or Don Ohlmeyer or Mark Lonsdale or Frank Sinatra or Annette Bening or Kurt Russell or Tom Hanks or Claus von Bülow or Fergie or King Hussein or Queen Noor or Princess Diana, and Andy Cunanan is thrown in for good measure, on and on and on ... Dunne will chisel in a name anywhere. On page 89 "..."Is that the restaurant owned by Michael Jackson's son? I don't mean Elizabeth Taylor's friend Michael Jackson that Johnnie Cochran represented in the child molestation case," said Gus." And on page 159 "... Tina Sinatra, Frank's daughter, was there at another table ..." is a typical example of how the author overdoes it. Why bother to say "Frank's daughter"? It's not necessary and it's redundant.

What the novel does show, if it's to be taken in the least bit seriously, is the condition of our society, and in particular that of the rich and famous who are seen to be a shallow bunch of people. They strive to be seen in the court room or at dinners or functions given to discuss the O.J. case. All this to promote themselves. The fact that two people were brutally murdered is shunted to the sidings and the court case comes over as another arm of the entertainment business.

Chapter 21 contains a family crisis when Gus's son Zander goes missing while hiking in the Santa Rita Mountains of Arizona. Here is the strongest and most moving writing in the book. Gus is sitting with his crippled ex-wife Peach, who suffers from Multiple Sclerosis, trying to tell her about their missing son. In doing so Gus covers everything the book has to say and more. He does it well and in a few pages.

But despite this outbreak of decent writing Dominick Dunne fails to pull this one off. His writing is contrived and stiff, the dialogue sounds false, and each paragraph is staged simply to slip a name or names into it. Because of it his attempts at being amusing are irritating, and his attempts at being serious fail too because Dunne allows his biased outrage to smother him.

At the beginning of the book it is made clear that Gus Bailey is found murdered. Who did it? At the end it is revealed, and comes as no surprise. This is certainly no who "dunne" it. The supposed twist is an unnecessary cheap shot that adds nothing to an already boring book.

This novel in the form of memoir is filled with thinly veiled fictional that exactly follows Dunne's life in LA during the Simpson murder trials. He even quotes his actual articles from Vanity Fair at the beginning of each chapter. Nevertheless, this book is filled with wonderful and fascinating scenes. Who knew that Nancy Reagan met Heidi Fleiss? Or that Princess Margaret found the trial to be a bore? That that Jack Nicholson, Warren Beatty, and Elizabeth Taylor were all fascinated by the trial? Several reviewers have admonished Dunne for name dropping. That is absurd. Dunne admits he does it, and frankly, it is fun. This isn't as much about the trial as the life outside of it and that was terrific new perspective. The ending of this novel could be called almost comic and Dunne took a lot of heat for it, but it makes an important point about celebrity in our culture. I don't want to ruin the mystery, although it becomes obivous early on. One could argue that Bailey (Dunne), who lived through celebrity gossip and stories, that he died by the proverbial sword. There is a certain poetic justice to it. Nevertheless, a juicy read for those still fascinated by the OJ trial and Dunne.

NPR is Bailey White's home, and this novel, full of eccentric oddballs with a thin story line, makes me think she should stick to those short schticks in the future. Good characterization, especially Roger, a plant pathologist and peanut virologist who may or may not be falling in love with Della, a bird artist.
White's gentle humor and affection for life's slightly weird travelers makes this a fun read.

Baily White knows how to develop characters and fills the book with great ones. That is the good news. The so-so news is that the book is almost without beginning. I felt as if I had walked into the middle of a movie without knowing the early part of the plot and without the list of characters provided, I would have been totally lost. The middle is chocked full of great stories, but there is no ending. When I reached the last page of the book, I was surprised there wasn't another page to turn. Some of the events were left incomplete or maybe the readers are to supply their own ideas as to what happened. In spite of that, I found that I was remembering things that I had not thought of in years, such as Dominecker and Buff Orphington chickens, and reminiscing about my grandmother's pre Civil War family home place. Ms White knows south Georgia and the aristocrats who still serve tea on white linen daily and who can trace their flowers' ancestries as well as they can! ! their own. I will read other books by Ms White despite my few reservations about Plums. I like the reminiscinces.

I listened to this book on tape as I drove to and from school. I laughed out loud several times when the characters reminded me of people I knew as a child in rural southern Virginia. Hilma, Eula, Meade and even Louise could have been my great-aunts. I wish we could all have a friend like Roger. The agricultural references as well as those related to birds and floriculture were educational, helped to set the scene, and marked the passage of time. I loved the sound of Ms. White's voice. This was a great book to "read" on the road, though sometimes my vision was blurred by a few tears. It relaxed me after teaching all day

Having actually read the book, unlike most of the reviewers in this list that have not cracked its covers or turned a single page, I think that my review should carry some weight.

First, global warming is almost certainly due to macroenvironmental factors that are not due to human activity. This is widely documented from everything from studies of glacial gase entrapment to ocean sediments.

Second, wide variations in climatic conditions are the NORM. Thus the current period of global warming, that has continued since the Little Ice Age several hundreds years ago (and centuries before CO2 emissions from human activity were a factor) can not be thought of as a radical departure from normal climatic change.

Third, Carl Sagan wrote of a "baloney detector" that we should use when evaluating science. One of the surest signs of baloney is the "reducto ad hominum" argument. True, "only" two PHDs were involved in this book (there are countless books by a SINGLE PHD that are not attacked in this manner) but that is not the fault of the book. Also true, the book is sponsored by a pro-development group, but there are countless books by environmental groups that are not debased solely by that connection. Finally, most of the science is fully footnoted and you are able to check their conclusions. This is not true of most of the environmental movements polemics.

On the whole the book is readable and does not insult a laymans intelligence. The sources and bibliography are valuable for those that wish to take an honest inquiry further.

I have an open mind about all the subjects dealt with in this book and therefore found reading it very worthwile. Yes, the authors are from what one could call the 'other side' as they make no bones about directly attacking what the authors call 'ideological environmentalism'. However, the book is well written given the number of authors involved and clearly presents their arguments and information.

The book covers such topics as global warming, sustainable development, biotechnology, chemicals/pollutants and the environment, population, et. al. that should be of interest to everyone.

The strength of the book is the attempt to bring scientific research and data to bear on these important and sensitive issues and the policies that exist or that have been promoted to deal with them. This approach is very much needed and the authors should be commended for their work, regardless of where you might stand on any of the issues. We need reasoned debate.

The authors do engage in some of their own political poking at those they don't agree with and do resort to the straw man approach using 40 year old books and articles as the straw man and they do also use statistics in ways ranging from acceptable to somewhat dubious that present their case in the strongest possible light. They do ignore certain issues such as biodiversity where positive data (their obvious preference) is not available to support their strong optimism that markets and science have and will benefit humanity and solve all its problems. However, this political and economic perspective is to be expected from the American Enterprise Institute and is not presented in a too polemical tone.

Overall this book is comprehensive in its coverage, informative, well referenced and thought provoking, and therefore I can highly recommend it for those seriously and dispassionately interested in understanding these issues better.

I do not agree with certain of their analyses or use of statistics or all of their underlying philosophy but I commend them again for providing a sane and reasoned book that gives me the opportunity to study, analyse, raise questions, search references and become better informed.

Lets not shoot all the messengers or we can't discuss anything serious anymore.

and it's becoming easier to search for truth with the emergence of a brave group of people who are not afraid to go against the status quo and ask us to look beyond the sensational headlines and political correctness of the so called "green movement".

From global warming to biotech food to chemicals, Ronald Bailey and the Competitive Enterprise Institute risk a lot by going against "conventional wisdom" and asking us to re-examine some of the hottest topics in the headlines today. Well researched and written so even a lay person like myself can understand it, this is a don't miss book for anyone who wants to stop being scared all the time because some "green" group or bureaucracy needs to keep the public in a state of anxiety in order to survive financially. The greatest payoff from reading the book? I find that I feel much better about the state of the planet and things do not seem so hopeless. Thanks CEI and Ronald Bailey.

I bought this book thinking highly of it, i was pretty dissappointed with the way the book carried itself.mr.bailey didn't really give me any information i could really use. and he has a "10 commandments of erotica" in this book that covers some of the ideas i use in my stories. he is informative but this is the kind of book a novel writer should buy and not an amateur like myself,i give him some credit, but i would not recommend this book to anybody.

I was looking for more technique advice. This book doesn't deliver.

This book was hard to rate. When I 1st opened it's stiff pages for just a peek before bed, I found myself still engulfed an hour later. Yet I felt deep disappointment.

I have been writing short-story porn-erotica for a few years, successfully. What I had hoped to glean from this book were the nitty gritty details of actually getting published, as the title clearly promises. I looked for the all important contract examples, publisher contacts (at the very least addresses to write for guidelines) & sources with addresses for publishing short-story erotica. None of these promised components were included in this book! I'm not sure how the author can justify his claims to helping anyone "get published" through this book.

If you already know how to write, skip this book & find one that includes publisher information at the very least. This author's excuse for not including the vital information for which I bought this book, was that guidelines change quickly. This doesn't excuse the fact that addresses of publishing houses rarely change so quickly & should have been included so that writers could request the latest guidelines. Instead I am left to either search for another book that delivers the information it promises to, or do the research on my own.

I didn't need to buy or read this book to learn how to write erotica (although I am always open to learning new techniques), nor to read the obvious well-known industry tidbits. Almost everything in this book was useless to a writer who actually wants to publish their work.

As to the writing style, I find no fault. This book is an easy, quick read with writing exercises at the end of each chapter. It does very briefly (less than a paragraph each) cover such issues as using a pseudonym & literary agents but again, writers are expected to find the actual information on their own. This book does NOT provide ANY actual information on how to get published. I truly feel that the title is misleading, false advertisement.

I wanted to give this book a 5 rating but obviously it doesn't deliver the goods, which would place it at a 2 rating in my opinion. The reason I rated it a 3: for people who don't know anything about writing erotica, Writing Erotic Fiction : And Getting Published (Teach Yourself) by Mike Bailey, will at least get you started.

I recently returned from a 3 month tour of Europe and took this book with me. While it did have a number of major European cities in it the actual information about them was definetly lacking. I found my self usually better off with out a book at all as opposed to only having this one. Several other travelers we met felt the same way and some were lucky enough to have Lonely Planet guides. For the money spent I'll stick to them or Rick Steves in the future. i.e. This book would take you to the train station/ subway but then fall short on what the heck to do to get a ticket!!! Which is important information stranded in 20 different stations/ subways a month each with different customs. Frommer's did do an excellent job of pointing out all of the gay and lesbian districs and bars in each city and the gay friendly hotels and shops... but they also have a strickly gay guide to Europe as well. The amount of space used for this information could have been better allocated for more pertinent information. I'll have to give a thumbs down on this book. Take something else with you or take nothing at all.

Frommer's does a good job with the general hints on travelling cheaper, but unless you plan on visiting only the major cities and capitals only, look for another book. There are 24 major cities and surrounding areas covered from Ireland to Budapest, but that's not many cities in comparison with all of Europe. I only will have a short time in Europe and that means that I will only be able to visit two of the cities listed and have to use another book for everything in between. Lonely Planet is much more inclusive and definitely covers the lower price scale.

Just returned from a 2 month trip using the 2002 guide. I found the recommendations for the restaurants to be excellent. After realizing that the Frommer's writers and I had the same tastes, I made it a point of seeking out all of their 'starred' recommendations for restaurants. The sightseeing descriptions and recommendations were also quite good. The hotel recommendations were not as good. A few of the hotels we stayed in that were not 'starred' or listed as a 'Find' were not as comfortable as hotels in other books.

We traveled with this Frommer's, Rick Steves, Lonely Planet and Rough Guides through France, Belguim, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Netherlands, Czech Republic, Hungary, and Italy. We liked Rick Steves' recommendations for lodging, Frommer's for restaurants and both for sightseeing. Lonely Planet and Rough Guides were not used if in a Frommer's city. If in a Rick Steve's city (but not Frommer's) we used Lonely Planet for restaurant recommendations (not as good a Frommer's but better than Rick Steves).

Background: Two travelers, professional, early 30s with enough money to stay out of the hostels, but did not want to blow the bank of 5 star lodging. Rick Steve's packing philosophy. Both traveler's love to eat!!

As a practicing Pagan, a grandmother, and an educator I am always looking for new activities to do with little ones which will help them appreciate Mother Earth and all her glories.

I was VERY disappointed in this book. It is poorly written, poorly edited and full of misspellings and typos. That would have been forgivable if the ideas it contained had been original, but they were also disappointingly common (blowing bubbles, making dream pillows, a recipe for bird food etc.)

The reader would be better off purchasing "Celebrating the Great Mother" by Cait Johnson and Maura D. Shaw or "Circle Round" by Starhawk, Diane Baker and Anne Hill. In fact, the "Little Hands Nature Book" by Nancy Fusco Castaldo promotes more spirituality than one will find here.

The ideas are cute but I didn't realize this was a book for witches. I'm merely a nature lover. Okay I did think that the ideas were good but the authors need to learn to spell magic and magical. Since when do these words have k's in them???

I've been collecting craft ideas related to my Wiccan spirituality for a long time, about 10 or 15 years. Some of the ideas in this book are similar to ones I have read before: dream pillows, bird food, etc. I was truly delighted by all the original ideas and seeing how another pagan mom applied them. It's not a book of strictly child-crafts. I'd say about 1/3 to 1/2 can be used for kids. The ideas I liked best for kids were the birthday cakes, jeweled curtains, and bird bath. I have incorporated at least half of the ideas into my every day life already and will use more next summer. Another unique thing about this book is that the authors incorporate funny and sad events from their lives and how they used them in their spirituality. Also, the book is written simply, without a lot of Ph.D. talk. It's like the authors are just talking to you, telling you how they do things. I guess some people might think that's poor editing or poorly written but I think it's great to find an author who doesn't talk down to the common person.