ER Books

I was not expecting a paper doll book but one that truly talked about the song's words.

This is an excellent book for any leader wanting to educate her troop on the history of Girl Scouts. There are many badges at the Brownie and Junior level that can be earned, in part, by using this book. It is written at a level for girls of all ages. I hope Ms. Hunt continues this series to present day uniforms with the diary notes. Very interesting book. Thanks.

If you are a Troop leader, or even a Girl Scout Member, I highly recommend purchaseing BOTH "On My Honor" (Volume 1) and "Whene'er You Make A Promise"(Volume 2). These are beautifully illustrated, and are a great hands-on way for girls of any age to learn about the history of scouting in the US. Younger girls will appreciate being able to dress the dolls of many time periods, older girls will enjoy the personal stories.
Both tie in with a number of badge and patche requirements, such as the "Brownie Girl Scouts Through the Years" and "Her Story" Try-its, also, the "Juliette Lowe" Patch, and "Girl Scouting Around the World" Junior badges, among others! What a great resource, and hard to find! Add this to your resource library for yourself or your Service Unit!!

This volume from Paradox Press gives you a wonderful illustration of the history of gang warfare. See the forerunners of today's Crips and Bloods! You'll love all the art, and the writing is good, too.

This is another book review by Wolfie and Kansas, the boonie dogs from Toto, Guam. "The Big Book of Thugs" contains vignettes by 57 different comic artists about notorious gangs and mobs. We read this book because we heard there was a section about a gang called "the Hounds". It turned out that "the Hounds" was simply a name for a human gang. However, dogs do play a role in some of the stories in this book. A canine trained to snatch purses was an early member of the Crazy Butch Gang. The "emperor" of the Highbinder Society used dogs as bodyguards. We think these examples just show that there is no such thing as a bad dog. There are only good dogs trained by bad humans. . . . The art in this book is outstanding. The book is in black and white, but that is not a problem for relatively color blind animals like ourselves. Another big plus is that, unlike two of the four other Paradox Press "Big Books" that our noncanine animal companion ordered on the net or by mail, "The Big Book of Thugs" was not missing several pages in the middle

In this well written, engrossing book it's hard to tell who is worse--the victim or the murderer. This is a story almost too bizarre to be believed.

Kathy, the victim, was raised Catholic. By the time she was an adult she had clearly fallen away--we are talking about someone who married four times. Not to mention the infidelities. And she met her fourth husband, a nurse, over the dying body of her third husband. Within less than a month (I told you this was bizarre) Kathy had married the nurse, Chaz.

Kathy's career as Nevada State Controller was nearly ended by scandal. One employee accused her of sexual harassment and partially stripping in front of him. Other employees accused her of making them work on her campaign during the work day, and for free.

Kathy may have been immoral to the bone, and a shrill, unpleasant woman to boot, but her marriage to Chaz was a disaster, a marriage more of hate than of love. Their relationship was so ugly, so bitter it's surprising it lasted a year...and was there a dark secret that kept them together?

I don't want to give away more of the story, but this is one true crime novel you won't want to miss.

Chaz Higgs who was a respected nurse in Las Vegas is now serving a 20 year sentence for poisoning his wife, Kathy Augustine. Unlike other cases of killing spouses, Chaz is the fourth husband of Kathy Augustine, a power hungry politician in Nevada. The book does not paint the murdered victim as the devoted wife but rather jealous, posessive, and obsessed wife. I do feel sorry for Kathy since she didn't deserve her fate even if I felt that she was never going to let Chaz go. She doesn't get dumped but does the dumping. Even her previous husband was prepared to divorce her but died three years earlier. Sadly, Kathy's relationships with men, women, and even her own daughter are not idealistic. I felt that Carlton Smith, the author, should have just explained that her daughter, Dallas Voss Augustine, is a lesbian rather than just hint at it. I would have liked to have known the family's response to Dallas' alternative lifestyle as the author puts it. Dallas and her mother were not very close but not just for that reason since Kathy was a staunch Catholic Republican. Dallas and her stepfather, Chaz, became close because they could share their dysfunctional relationships with Kathy. Dallas was obviously disregarded in favor of Kathy's career. Dallas lost the mother that she never had in the first place. According to reports, Kathy was quite cruel and critical of her only child. When Chuck Augustine died, he adopted Dallas and her as his own child. The obituary read survived by three sons. Obviously, it must have hurt Dallas the most. Kathy was too busy with her future fourth husband and raised family suspicions. Kathy was always trying to achieve and satisfy her ego and lifestyle. With the power as state treasurer in Nevada, she was the only impeached politician to remain in office until her term was completed. She was ostracized by the politicians. Of course, Kathy had mistreated her own employees and ordered them to campaign for her on the state job. This violated state laws and she was admonished for her behavior. She created an unhealthy and hostile work environment for her employees even being heartless when one of her employees had to go home to take care of her diabetic cat. After reading the book last night, I began to see how complicated the situation for Chaz was in. He was in a hellish marriage with a demanding, dominating wife. He wanted out but nobody dumps Kathy Augustine. He probably felt that he had no choice but to do it. In the end, the jury gave him the lightest sentence of 20 years before parole. As for the rest of the people involved including Dallas who has her own troubles, I wonder what happened to them. Sadly, Kathy never found satisfaction in any of her achievements which were grand and took it out on people who were closest to her.

Living a life of utter distress, little Alice would one day be transformed from the hooking, sexually abused teenager into someone very powerful; vampire...but she really would be more than that Falling in love with a man beholding secrets was a sick experiment on his part and when he died before consummating their marriage, and leaving her as Vanessa White all hell was about to break loose.

Eventually meeting another man known as Mark, Vanessa thought this was love; until he faked his own death. As an Elite he had special powers that allowed him to transfer his soul into another host taking on any appearance he wished. Now she was on the hunt for him, she needed revenge, she needed to see him truly dead. He knew she was on his tail, but he had big plans in store for her...until the day she caught him unaware. Then he turned the tables and began obsessively tracking her.

With the help of two members of the Elite, Vanessa must destroy The Renegade, but there is much betrayal and deceit that must be brought out into the open. People are not as they seem, and Vanessa's past has just come back to haunt her.

Jane Timm Baxter knows how to write a good horror story! She masters the art of horror entangled with mystery and makes The Renegade a scream to read. Her vampires and Elite's are cousin races but have much in common, you do not want to pass up this book if you see it on your bookstore's shelf! 4 Bloody Hearts

Contact Jane Timm Baxter: www.cearajaen.com

The Renegade introduces you to Vanessa, a vampire seeking vengeance. With a life already torn apart in the past by an alcoholic father, and the loss of her love Paul, she wastes no time in going after "Mark". "Mark" being the latest one to betray her, uses his powers throughout the story to try to fool Vanessa. Vanessa experiences powers of her own as well, picking up and sensing where he has been. Vanessa is quite creative in her planning, her determination evident. She eventually finds sanctuary with an old friend from her past where she encounters one of the many visions and flashbacks through time she has throughout the story. Each one brings her closer to discovering more about "Mark" who she soon finds out is really named Jules. Near the end Vanessa finally meets Descher and Megeara, two that she shares more than meets the eye with. These two fellow vampires, together with Vanessa plan how to finally take care of The Renegade once and for all. With an ending that shocks the reader, The Renegade takes you on a journey among well written characters with graphic detail, lending your imagination a perfect treat. Readers of vampire fiction should not be disappointed.

It was great to be able to find this book online with Amazon.com because my professor "forgot" to tell the campus bookstore that she wanted an older edition of this work. That being said, the author is still living in the 60-70's when women were terribly "oppressed" and everything was gender opinionated. If I didn't have to read this for class, I would burn it much like a bra from a revolutionary of the times.

I have really enjoyed reading this book. It is one of the more interesting textbooks I have read since being in college. The only downside to this book is that some of the statistics are a bit old. Other than that the sociological perspective on gender has never been more interesting.

I will rarely reread a book because there are just so many other books out there that I really want to read. One book I really enjoyed in 2001 when I read it was Amy Tans: The Bonesetter's Daughter, and, since I needed a good audio book for a short trip, I decided to try this story one more time. I was not disappointed. The author and actress Joan Chen were co narrators of this audio book, and they did a flawless job alternating between the Chinese and American accents.

The Bonesetter's Daughter is a story about a mother and a daughter raised different cultures. Ruth is an American born Chinese woman, and her mother Luling was born and raised in China.

Ruth Young is a 40-something ghostwriter in San Francisco who periodically goes mute, a metaphorical indication of her inability to express her true feelings to the man she lives with, Art Kamen, a divorced father of two teenage daughters. Ruth's inability to talk is subtly echoed in the story of her mother LuLing's early life in China.

LuLing has always been a burden to Ruth, overbearing, accusatory, darkly pessimistic. Now, at 77, she has Alzheimer's, but she had recorded in a diary the extraordinary events of her childhood and youth in a small village in China during the years that included the discovery nearby of the bones of Peking Man, the Japanese invasion, the birth of the Republic and the rise of Communism. LuLing was raised by a nursemaid called Precious Auntie, the daughter of a famous bonesetter.

Answers to both womens' problems are revealed as the reader hears Luling's touching story of growing up in an orphanage.

One of my favorite passages:

These are the things I know are true:

My name is LuLing Liu Young. The names of my husbands were
Pan Kai Jing and Edwin Young, both of them dead and our secrets
gone with them. My daughter is Ruth Luyi Young. She was born in a
Water Dragon Year and I in a Fire Dragon Year. So we are the same
but for opposite reasons.

This was just a beautiful story, which demonstrates how we really are a product of the environment in which we were raised; how the past affects our future. I was especially touched by the mother/daughter relationship, as Ruth became involved in the care of her aging mother.

This book is a phenomenal read for anyone who is interested in generational changes. The book is well written and a glorious display of a woman's journey linked to a difficult generational past. If you have trouble understanding your mother, read this book. Excellent story telling and deep visual images.

I just finished reading The Bonesetter's Daughter, by Amy Tan, and it's fabulous.

The novel begins with Ruth Young, a middle-aged ghostwriter living in modern-day California. Ruth is living with her lover, Art, and feeling out of sorts with herself. Her mother, LuLing, is a first-generation Chinese immigrant with a failing memory. Worried about her mother, Ruth moves in with her to ensure that she's eating, resting, and taking her medication as she should.

It's then that Ruth recalls a sheaf of papers that her mother gave her many years before, written in Chinese. Ruth's Chinese is doubtable, so she'd never taken the time to translate her mother's writings. Suddenly overwhelmed with her mother's fragility, she pays a scholar to translate the text. What follows is the story of LuLing's life before she came to America, and it is a fascinating tale.

LuLing divulges that she was a bastard child, not actually the sister of the woman Ruth calls Aunt Gal. She was previously married, she taught at an orphanage, and she has been keeping certain secrets about herself and her life for nearly fifty years. Learning about who her mother is helps Ruth understand her own identity and appreciate her family history.

The story of LuLing's life is rich and detailed. I loved Tan's descriptive writing about life in China and LuLing's relationship with her mother. I also enjoyed the myriad parallels that Tan drew between Ruth and LuLing, similarities that Ruth herself did not know existed until she read the manuscript.

Worth reading.

This story seamlessly meshes past and present--three generation's worth--into a beautiful, nearly flawless, piece of work. Tan connects the past and present through a manuscript written by her main character's mother. Whole chapters are devoted to her mother's childhood and young adult memories, as are entire chapters devoted to the main character's childhood and present-day adult life. I am amazed that while reading this generation-spanning novel, never did I lose track of the novel's setting or time.
Amy Tan's novel provokes empathy, joy, sorrow, laughter, and a host of other emotions. This is her novel's strength.

The Bonesetter's Daughter is, essentially, about how the past affects the future. Some other major themes are the relationships between mothers and daughters and the culture gap between Chinese immigrants and their children.

In the first half of the book (the "present"), Ruth's mother is suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Ruth often recalls significant moments in her childhood that illustrate her relationship with her mother. When Ruth finds a written account of her mother's past (written by her mother) in her drawer, a number of perplexing things about her mother become clear. The second part of the book is the written account of Ruth's mother's life that helps Ruth to understand why her mother is the woman she is.

I thought this was an incredibly insightful look at how the past affects the future and of how the experiences of one's ancestors can affect one's own life. The plot of the story drew me in, and Amy Tan's writing style kept me reading until the end. I was also deeply moved by the ending scenes and would highly recommend this book to anyone interested, especially fans of Amy Tan's books already.

The first time I read this I was angry with Winton for leaving us up in the air: the book was un-put-downable but too much is left unexplained and unresolved. The second time round I was angry with Scully for his dogged stupidity in failing to accept that his wife has left him and their daughter. Thirdly, who on earth are the riders and what on earth do they signify? I usually enjoy Winton but this really is too much. I would like him to stand up and explain himself.

I listened to the audio book of this particular story, and I found it to be entertaining, descriptive and extremely well read.

I'll be reading Tim Winton's other books, purely because of the way the man writes. He is so articulate and smooth in his delivery of this tale, that I became just as interested in his words, as what I was in the story itself.

Yes, Winton throws you a few melons to tries and distract you. But on the whole, it's a goldmine of conflict and action - something is always happening, there's always a trail to follow.

In reading some of the first reviews I feel many persons may have missed what I believe is the heart of this story. This books enters the depth of total disillusionment. Scully's search to find answers drives him to the point of insanity and is a tale of deep betrayal and the search for answers that will never come, leaving the choice to continue the search (the Riders or Pete's brother Conor) unending. It is as Pete put it: "There are things that have no finish, Scully, no endin to speak of. There's no justice to it, but that's the God's truth. The only end some things have is the end you give em".

This book is one that just rattles around in your mind when you are not reading it and for days after you finish it. It was wonderfully written, an engaging story, and had real characters.

Tim Winton is one of the most talented writers I have ever encountered.

In The Riders, Winton takes you on a journey that will leave you frustrated, concerned, edgy, stricken and totally enthralled.

The story lies in everything that Winton leaves out. So many questions unanswered yet to answer them would change the whole flavor of the Book.

The beginning of the book starts off simply enough. The uncomplicated, down to earth Scully is preparing his newly acquired Irish cottage for the arrival of his wife and child, both of whom he adores unconditionally.

The Ireland that Winton brings to us is so real you can see the green grass, feel the breezes, tension, history and passion of the Irish. Although I dread any concept of roughing it, Scully's cottage with no electricity and outside toilet sounds so appealing I want to get on the next plane.

Therein lies the problem, his daughter arrives at the airport minus her mother, Scully's wife. Thus begins his incredible journey to find his wife and discover why she would leave him.

His wife Jennifer is featured only from Scully's point of view, at first the perfect wife and mother, one part of his three part world, his family. Then as Scully travels around Europe with his depressing, crazy obsession to find her, we discover, as he does that all was not ever what it seemed.

This story belongs to Scully and his daughter Billie. The daughter he loves to distraction who adores him back. The daughter who instinctively understands him and wants to be his world.

Throughout this tale we discover parts of Europe as a desperate man might see them rather than a tourist with rose colored glasses. We see the best and the worst of people and most of all we see growth and love bloom out of a tragedy almost too difficult to comprehend.

I give Winton 5 stars easily as this book still lingers in my mind and soul weeks after I put it down for the last time. Winton's use of language and metaphor crosses boundaries so that he can be see as a brilliant writer on an international scale rather than just as one of Australia's exports.

I will continue to read other works by Winton and I am certain I will be impressed.

The controversy over whether and to what extent America should be a multicultural nation rings loudly today but the earliest resonations began as far back as Jean Crevecoeur in 1759. In THE DISUNITING OF AMERICA, Arthur Schlesinger notes that no definitive answer will be forthcoming anytime soon. Schlesinger's position is conservative, an odd position for him considering his early youthful fling with liberalism under JFK. Schlesinger places himself squarely in the camp of Dinesh D'Souza and John Ellis, both of whom are aghast at the surge of ethnic tribalism that is currently sweeping the United States. Schlesinger believes strongly that America should be a multicultural nation, but he opposes multiculturalism. The former suggests only that our history books and culture should reflect the rainbow hue that began America. The latter implies that every culture on earth should have equal weight in all matters--except for the white, European-based culture which is the source of all the world's evils. He takes the garden variety complaints of the Afro-Centrists, the Reconquistas, and every other sub group that sees differentiation and exclusion rather than inclusion as the key to defining who we are and where we are going and notes that to the extent that these exclusionists have their collective ways in our schools, then The "United" in the United States will be a term bereft of meaning. All this is not to say that Schlesinger sees no merit in their laments. In fact, he agrees totally that they have been denied their rightful place on the same side and the same page as those who are descended from white European stock. Where he draws the line is the degree to which they seek legitimate redress. Schlesinger places the complaints of the cultural secessionists on a broad spectrum, with one end reflecting a complete hegemony of European whites over non-European non-whites and the other end its polar opposite--the demand that the hegemony continue but instead of a white dominant one, there is to be a series of feudal mini-hegemonies, with each one demanding power, recognition, and historicity.

In between the time of his first edition (1991) and his most recent (2005), Schlesinger does not wax optimistically that America can emerge as a nation that is aware of its multi-hued background without falling into the trap of Balkanization that has bedeviled much of the world today. As for Crevecoeur's original essay on What Is An American, the answer seems to have been more clear to him two centuries ago, than it is now to those who wish a life of seclusion amongst only those who look like them.

When you think of what befell Rome or
Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations"
this book brings it all together and
is a MUST READ to understand what
is happening the American Melting Pot!

The most prominent feature of this book, last revised in 1998, is the fact that the author bends over backward to find something complimentary to say about the ideology that has gripped America for the last few decades. This in itself is quite a challenge, and Schlesinger often gives the impression that he is straining to find some way to make the various slogans of this new dogma seem defensible.

The author's main interest is history, and a great part of the book is on the dismantling of history that has occurred in the last thirty years. The kid gloves treatment of what without exaggeration can easily be called a cultural atrocity, will make some readers impatient. Does he really think that these people are going to read his book? Does he really think that, even if they DO read his book, that their opinions are going to be altered to even a slight degree?

If he does think this, then he does not really understand the full seriousness of the new American mind-set. For a thorough study of this new ideology, see While America Sleeps: How Islam, Immigration and Indoctrination are Destroying America from Within. This book is fair, but it does not attempt to make excuses for what is going on. I really do not think that Schlesinger understood the full seriousness of what is going on. He has spent his life among reasonable and well-informed people.

While this book was not as compelling as I expected it to be, I completely agree with the general premise. That being that multi-culturalism taken too far is both harmful and counter-productive. Not to mention that it is completely antithetical to what our founders envisioned for this country. Mr. Schlesinger has nothing against the teaching of cultures other than European-American, but he insists that an over-emphasis on ethnicity, ultimately promotes division and an 'us vs. them' mentality. Multi-culturalists argue that it is important for students to be taught about their own respective ethnicity in order to have self-esteem and pride. Mr. Schlesinger argues, and I firmly agree, that as Americans, we no longer belong to the ethnicities of our grandfathers. Our founding fathers were clear about this, Americans are a "new race of men" who must "cast off the European skin, never to resume it." Indeed, America was meant to be a melting pot. Schlesinger acknowledges that throughout much of our history, many minorities were forcibly excluded from fully assimilating. This is no longer the case though, and I think it is important to point out that just because a man (or a nation) fails to live up to it's ideals, does not mean that the ideals are wrong. Included in the book are quotes from various Americans about this issue, and I was somewhat surprised by some of them. For instance, the great Frederick Douglas said, "No one idea has given rise to more opression and persecution toward the colored people of this country, than that which makes Africa, not America, their home. It is that wolfish idea that elbows us off the sidewalk, and denies us the rights of citizenship."

I firmly believe that this tribalist mentality is one of the foremost issues facing America today. We will not survive as a nation if we continue to separate ourselves along lines of race, ethnicity, or religion. As long as we view ourselves as Irish-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, or African-Americans, we will never be true Americans. And we will not view each other as fellow Americans, but as separate tribes that need to be guarded against. Is this the America that our founding fathers would have wanted?

As I stated earlier, I didn't find the book as compelling as I expected. Not that it's not good, but I felt the author could have gone further. All in all, it is a decent starting point for anyone interested in the subject of multi-culturalism.

Today Mr. Schlesinger appears to be a conservative vs. the liberal he actually was when writing the book.

For people over 50, you will recognize America as it was. For younger folks, this will give you an idea of the very rapid changes this country has experienced.

The country was at one time like a rich stew, and now has become a bunch of individual plates of foods or ingredients that don't even want to touch each other. Each ingredient yells out how important it is, and not realizing that carrots alone, wonderful as they may be, have not reached the potential they can when mixed with potatoes, meat, tomatoes, spices and lovingly blended into that rich stew.

Hopefully people will read and understand that the individual ethnic groups need recognition. But, they need to be Americans first, and their ethnic background as second. For example, American-Asian instead of
Asian-American. The ethnocentricism is tearing the country apart, weakening us to invasions of many types.

This book brings these ideas to mind and will make you think and reflect.

judging by the reviews i read i expected a well detailed tale of brutal sexual sadism. I should have known better when some are referring to the fact that this book "lives up to the best of Ketchum". that is not much of standard when one seeks detail. the ususal disappointment of a detail here and there but for the most part glossed over viloence. if i know what i know now i would never have bought it.

We all lead a normal, sheltered life. Half the time, we all leave the roost without experiencing anything traumatic. But what if something in your past changed you, and not for the good? What if something from your childhood made you want to horrifically abuse, brutally rape and then violently murder people?

Our story is SNUFF, a story of perversion, torture and terror from Eric Enck, a renowned small press author who`s developed a somewhat-cult-like following, and Adam Huber, a newspaper writer (SNUFF being his first `professional' venture into fiction writing.)

What is SNUFF about?

We meet our main character, Jack, right at the beginning of the story, and it isn't long after that we're introduced to his twisted sexual desires. See, Jack's the kind of guy who wants to meet a pretty girl, get her in bed, and get off. But he's also the kind of guy who wants to commit brutal acts of torture, most of the time including sodomy, bloodletting and bondage (and for a fair note, this is when Jack ISN'T being creative.)

Our second character, Mikey, is an amateur pornographer. He films people having sex. Cool, right? Well, he's about to become more than an `amateur' when Jack steps into the picture, and not in a good way either.

The nature behind SNUFF of that is brutal torture, but it's also a very real happening. Snuff, films where people are raped and murdered, is very real, and happens all over the world. Enck and Huber take you into a world we don't normally see, and we're taken there in a no-bars, in-your-face way. The sexually-perverse encounters are real, and the torture will make you squirm.

But see, the thing about SNUFF's characters is that they're real. Jack is hurting people because he believes they should be hurt, because, having dealt with a childhood of abuse himself, he's tampered to feel this way. Nothing gets in his path, and nothing will stop him. And Mikey's pornography fuels his way of lifestyle, keeping him alive. Everything about SNUFF is believable, right down to the individual scenarios outside of the torture (dealing with 'clients,' certain reactions from some of the clients, abductions and robberies.)

Now, there's a few things that bother me though. The interior layout sometimes isn't in exact format. There are paragraphs that aren't indented, letters that are left out in bizarre rearranging of text, sentences that appear to have tabs in-between words. There were also a number of grammatical mistakes that weren't picked up by SNUFF's editor (and obviously should have been.) I won't put Enck and Huber at fault though, because they can't control design and editing production unless they're directly involved in it. My book also received a bad tear up the spine (which was most likely from shipping, and which I plan on getting a new book from said shipper.) I don't know if it was the binding or the shipping, but I'm guessing the shipping. I was also concerned about SNUFF's length. I felt there was a lot of uncovered back story that could and should have been utilized more. (Jack's back story was what made his twisted character even more believable; I wanted to see more of it.)

So, what did I think of SNUFF as a book?

Having not read any of Enck's or Huber's work, I wasn't sure what to expect. I did, however, expect something violent, and violent was what I got. I visible cringed and started to get squeamish (which rarely happens.) and a few times I had to stop and reread a sentence (particularly one about being sodomized by a coat hanger and a knife.) I LITERALLY stopped, saw the scenario in my head, then had to wait a moment before I started to read again.

I highly commend SNUFF. It's real, it's raw, and it's something you could talk about. I wouldn't have written since a long review if there wasn't a story to talk about, and if you want a twisted story and something good to read, SNUFF is definitely a good choice.

This book was as horrifying as I expected it to be. Other than that, there isn't much to it. The character development was basically non-existent. The story itself was predictable and served as a weak net to support the ongoing gore and brutality of the book. If you want to read a book for shock value, I recommend it. If you want a good story, I would skip it. Unfortunately the thing that stands out the most to me were the misspelled words littered throughout.

I had some misgivings before buying this book. I kept those in mind as I began reading it. It's just a bad book. It's poorly written, VERY poorly edited and it rips off so many different books and films that it isn't even funny. As far as the gore goes, it gets messy, but it seems like the authors read "American Psycho" too many times. Even the gore is poorly written. Just a bad book all the way around. If you're looking for a horror novel, this isn't it. If you're looking for gore for the sake of gore, they didn't even get that right.

The only explanation i find to the high-rated reviews from Amazon customers to this novel, is that all those reviews are from friends or relatives of the authors. I wanted to take a taste of the so-called "splatterpunk" genre, so i picked Snuff along with Off-Season (from Jack Ketchum) and Survivor (from J. F. Gonzalez). Snuff is, by a long shot, the weakest of the three (Off-Season is a GREAT novel, and Survivor, despite an implausible plot, is good entertainment). Snuff is only a gratuitous exercise in extremity without any plot or character development. And without three dimensional characters to worry for, the reader (this is me) is not immersed into the action, he distances from it. So in the end, all the gore and ultraviolence in the book (and there is plenty of it) is seen only as a formula. You read about tortures, mutilations, rapes and so on, and you simply are not affected by it; there is no suspense, no sense of dread, no nothing. As i said, this is because neither the torturers nor the victims are characters with any depth, but only one-dimensional carton-cuts full of cliché. The violence in Snuff is like the violence in a horror videogame, or in a Rambo movie, or even in some South Park episodes ("¡Oh, look, they killed Kenny!"): you can recognize that it is extreme, but you don't feel disturbed at all. So in essence, and due to the authors painful effort to disgust and shock the reader page after page, Snuff can only be seen as a colossal failure. Also, the style of writing lefts much to be desired, being nothing more than an amateurish carbon copy of what Brett Easton Ellis did brilliantly in American Psycho (in fact, Patrick Bateman, the killer from American Psycho, is even cited once in Snuff; at least the authors are honest enough to admit who they are ripping from). And last, but not least, the plot has some serious holes, and relies heavily on a bunch of coincidences so weird, so bizarre, so hard to swallow, that they are absolutely laughable. To sum up, stay away from Snuff. Not because it is extreme literature, but because it is extremely crappy literature.

any person doesn't have to like ER to like the book.It has all the detials,for SEASON 1.From 24 hours to EVERYTHIN OLD IS NEW AGAIN.You don't have to expect everything,just about everything.They need to put everybody in the hall-of-fame in the begining of the book.

This book is a really good book, because it discusses about the season 1 of ER. It puts into great depth about all of them. I am interested in going into the medical career so this is a great idea to read.

if you like the tv show you'll love this book! tons of information! great book overall!

ER is a show about the doctors, not the patients. All this book has is detailed summaries about "the woman with abdominal pain", "the child with the broken arm", etc. If you like hearing about every single patient that was on ER during the first season, and don't mind reading half a chapter about them, then this book is for you.

The book is beyond excellent, with unimaginably detailed summaries of each episode in the first season of the drama. It's also includes detailed reports on each of the patients treated and seen in the County, aswell as bits about the main cast members to the recurring ones, and a large list of the most drunk patients to the most lucky ones to the most unfortunate ones, and on, and on. It also has a 101 question IQ test to see what your ER IQ is, and medical glossary to find out the terms that are thrown around by Mark, Susan, or other staff members while wheeling somebody on a gurney to trauma. This book is highly recommended.