MR

Here's a dating/relationship book that women are really going to enjoy reading. It is packed with helpful pointers, hilarious phrases, and sassy female insights. As a fellow author in this genre I'm always checking out what other authors are saying and E. Jean Carroll has become up with a clever plan that should be very useful for eager bachelorettes looking for a great boyfriend with upside potential.

The book is based on something the author calls "The Man Catching Method" which says that: 1) Mother Nature designed women to find and seduce a man, 2) Men decide pretty much everything about a woman in the first 30 seconds, and 3) When a woman meets a man and they like each other they will synchronize or click.

This book is about getting a man to fall in love with a woman and not about getting married or being responsible in a love relationship. It is focused on getting that fast and secure attachment with a man and then deciding later whether the woman actually wants to keep him or not.

With this limited scope, the author takes the reader on a 6 week journey that covers: 1) acquiring the proper aloof mindset, 2) looking appealing in a man's eyes, 3) getting a firm grip on debilitating fear, 4) 119 places where to meet men & smart online strategies, 5) how to initiate contact, 6) asking a man out on a date, 7) some insights about intimidating men, 8) when to have sex in order to drive the man wild, and 9) 79 ways to lose the man that's been caught.

What is probably underappreciated about this book is how the author uses credible sources in the behavioral sciences to back up her claims.

And what is most delightful about this book (even for a male reader like me) is the absolutely hilarious way the author makes her points. Like a comedian, there's something funny every paragraph or so. And it's tasteful, intelligent humor too!

In the genre of dating books this one really stands out as about the most entertaining and helpful in its limited scope (getting a man to fall in love) of just about any one I've ever come across.

I've always enjoyed E. Jean's column in Elle, but this book is even better than I expected it would be. It's loaded with great man-catching advice, but more than that, it's advice for living life with an irrepressible sense of fun. It's great inspiration for anyone who needs to break out of a hum-drum shell, whether in search of a mate or a new social scene. It will get you off the couch, with a truth-or-dare-type kick in the pants. Hooray, E. Jean.

I admit I was dubious. I skipped two of the weeks----I did all the beauty advice (which is FANTASTIC! The Mr. Right Food Plan is genius. I've lost seven-and-a half pounds so far) and then I went straight to Week Four. My expectations were low, but I was looking so fabulous, I decided what the heck? And I was amazed. I 've met two wonderful men . . . and I've just started. (Now I am going back and doing the Six Week Plan from the beginning. I like the whole MIND-SET the author, E. Jean, advises.) It totally works. Totally, totallly works!

Mr. Darwin's Shooter recreates the 19th-century world in language that is baroque, evocative, and almost poetic. The book is filled with impressive learning on almost everything -- from life on sailing ships, to the genocide of Argentina's Indian population, to the nitty-gritty of slaughtering and skinning animals. Unfortunately, information and language don't necessarily make for a great novel. In the case of Mr. Darwin's Shooter, the narrative is glacial, Charles Darwin has only a secondary role, and, contrary to many of the reviews below, the book never grapples with the "Big Idea" of Faith vs. Science except in an incidental, indirect way. I liked the book, because I like pretty writing and I'm interested in the 19th century -- but there's no way that I would read it a second time.

Those who have already read all current Darwin biographies, should give this book a try. Mr. McDonald uses familiar facts in an entirely new way to create a convincing and sometimes moving novel. Unfortunately, the book doesn't make sufficiently clear why natural selection was such a threathening concept to dissenters, let alone Victorians in general. If you like the book, I would recommend reading "The Discovery of Slowness" by Sten Nadolny, too.

It is such a pleasure to find a book which grapples with some of the Big Ideas of history. Surely the theory of evolution and the publication of Origin of the Species are among the most life-changing developments in intellectual history in the past two hundred years. McDonald does justice to these, attempting to present momentous ideas with the seriousness they deserve while at the same time creating compassion for the people whose immediate lives and religious beliefs are seriously challenged, if not threatened. Though some may feel that the use of 19th century language and vocabulary are pretentious, I found them completely appropriate to the subject, creating a realistic setting for the ideas and themes. Since fiction by definition involves pretense, the use of "dated" language is not necessarily a failing. This is a challenging, fascinating work, which is, at the same time, great fun to read.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a very special book. It is about a doctor, named Jekyll. He is known as a gentleman who works quietly in his lab. What no one knows is that Dr. Jekyll has invented a sort of medicine that changes your whole body. When the medicine is taken, your personality becomes evil and your body turns into an ugly hairy man. When Dr. Jekyll drinks the medicine he, turns into Mr. Hyde. Hyde does everything that Jekyll has ever dreamed of but hasn't had a chance to do. Suddenly things go too far. Hyde murders an old man and there is a witness at the place of the death. Now, the police want Hyde and Dr. Jekyll decides that he shall continue being Jekyll and only Jekyll. But can he really keep away? It is so tempting to live the life of Hyde.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is one of the best books I have read. Even though it has a very dull setting, it is amazingly exciting. You always want to know what happens next. The changing between Jekyll and Hyde is made in a very good way, when the main character is Hyde, he always lives in danger, but when he's Jekyll he can live a perfectly normal life. One of the main points in the story is that you shouldn't use drugs to achieve things that you have always dreamed of, because you can really reach them by yourself. This theme really had an impact on me and got me thinking. Almost anyone can read this book because it is a classic and has been published in so many different versions. I would recommend it to almost anyone.

Sometimes the man who does it first does it best, and in Stevenson's case I think that's true. Anyone who's ever known or been an addict will find The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde terrifyingly familiar. Stephen King called this the archetypal werewolf novel, but that description only scratches the surface. Read this book. Then look closely in the mirror, if you dare.

This macabre tale--inspired by a dream--starts slowly but with an ever increasing sense of mystery, culminates in a vortex of horror worthy of Poe. What evil could be more impossible to resist or to conquer than Man's inherent flaw of dualtiy? RLS describes it as the innate struggle bewteen angelic and demonic forces which lurk in every soul. Beneath the veneer of Cilivization the two extremes wage eternal war in one breast.

Mr. Utterson, a conscientious laywer in Victorian London and longtime friend of both Henry Jekyll and Dr. Lanyon, confides his misgivings about the former's will to his cousin, Mr. Enfield. During the course of the chilling novella, each of the gentlemen contributes to our knowledge of this morbidly fascinating central character, who gradually loses control of his reason or his will.

What has caused the respectable Dr. Jekyll to condone such bizarre behavior from his guest/protege/parasitecalled Mr. Hyde? Why does he endure the odious presence of a younger, shorter, vicious person--even to entrusting him with the key to his residence? This Edward Hyde emotes something bestial and unrestrained, which inspires instant fear or disgust in normal men. Quick to flair up in unprovoked anger and shocking brutality, this Hyde creature is proving a menace to society. Naturally the concerned lawyer becomes increasingly alarmed at this unexplained hold over Henry Jekyll, but can a few learned gentlemen protect him from himself or his rash devotion to a human monster? By uniting forces, can they preserve both his property, his reputation and ultimately, his life?

When an elderly MP is murdered on the street, even Jekyll seems to realize that things have gone too far, but can the now drug-dependent physician control his urge to throw off the shackles of Society? Is he himself a victim...of the arrogance of medical and scientific knowledge or of attempting to play the god of creation with unknown powers? Hollywood has offered us various excellent, chllling versions, but the Classical Faithful will want to consult the original--which is more subtle and therefore more horrible than simply presenting the tale from the viewpoint of the protagonist. The last chapter consists of Jekyll's gripping confession: how a once learned and noble man realized the only way to destroy his diabolical alter-ego...Can he yet be saved by his loyal friends? Or must he face his destiny completely alone? Beware the beast that lurks within!

Wow, Dear Mr. President is a story collection that heralds the arrival of a great new writer! Gabe Hudson, to me, is the first writer that signals a transition of generations from war fiction about Vietnam to the group of young people who fought in the first Iraqi War. Due to the overinundation of books like Tom Brokaw's The Greatest Generation and the almost God-like worship of writers like Ambrose, the soldiers of wars after that (Korea,Vietnam,Iraq) are not given the attention and respect that they deserve. In Dear Mr. President, we are not treated to the super, almost soviet style citizen of the fatherland that Ambrose glorified in his books, but men and women who are bashed and broken and absurd and humorous and insane and brave and trying to do the best they can.

In "The Cure as I Found It", a soldier returned from the Gulf War must decide if the rules he learned in the special forces, namely to maim and kill, can be used against a neighborhood bully as he deals with the horrors of war in his nightmares.
Among the best stories is "Sneak and Peek Outside Baghdad" about a reconaissance mission which finds that the worst aspects of American hip-hop culture have transferred to Iraq even as one soldier remembers his lover left in the US. "Those Words Were Yours Not Mine" is about a blind woman named Valerie Hackett, whose 19 year old son is killed in the War. On his person is found a letter which she can't read. After asking a lot of people to read it to her, she senses that they are all lying to her, concealing the dreadful contents from her. So she hires someone at the hospital she's staying in to read it and learns about her son's disastrous marriage, of infidelity and betrayal. The last story, a novella called "Notes from a Bunker Along Highway 8" is a plea for peace and brotherhood as a Green Beret, shocked by the blood and guts he sees, gathers up a wounded comrade and abandons the war, holding up in a bunker with a bunch of lab apes, venturing out to the surface to help out wounded civilians and keeping his friend a virtual prisoner in his insane fantasies.

This was a great great book. The stories are funny, horrible, psycho, and masterful at times. He writes like Chuck Palahniuk, if Chuck had something to write about. Gabe has a war. With war comes atrocity, insanity, and absurdity. It's about time someone not only caught up to history, but overtaken it. Ironically, just as this book comes out, we are again engaged in Iraq (some would say we were never disengaged) and so the very issues the men and women deal with in this book might as well be set in the present. Hudson might just evolve into a great writer. We'll see.

These stories are about people I might have gone to high school with. It's so wierd to think that my contemporaries are veterans, and now there's a new bunch of kids going over to Iraq who are younger than my little brother & sister.

But here they are in all their human strength and frailty. Fictional, yes, but every writer uses his experiences and those of his friends to color their fictional world.

This book is far more readable and approachable than Catch-22 or Going after Cacciato, Apocalypse Now, and other war-genre stories to which it has been compared. Perhaps this is due to the contemporary nature of the stories, or maybe it's just because the writer captures character so well with dialogue
and action. This is a very quick, captivating read.

These stories have a huge dose of irony among the realistic snapshots of what the first Gulf War was like up-close. This is not the war we saw on CNN, this is more like Vietnam in the desert, where a confrontation with a few belligerent locals can turn into a landmine and booby-trap ridden massacre.

War veterans come home and can't forget their lives on the front lines. Minds snap, but their hearts are still in the right place. Chemical warfare takes its toll on veterans' bodies in different, horrible ways. Iraquis know just enough of our culture to get it wrong. You kill someone in order to save them. Your life back home goes to hell while you're living in hell on the front lines.

You have to laugh or you'd cry.

Read this.

I served in the Gulf, and not only has Mr. Hudson completely nailed that war to a tee, he also has a serious bead on human nature. I think it'll be a couple years before people truly see the historical importance of this book, but I am willing to say that this might be the most important book published this year. Mr. Hudson, through dark humor and wild story-telling, addresses issues such as Biological warfare, the little publicized psychological effects of modern war, the Bush administration's lust for war, the tenuous relationship between the Middle East and the West, America's lust for oil, the White House's utilization of mainstream media as a propaganda tool (especially CNN--anyone who served in that war will know what I am talking about), the hypocrisy inherent in America's foreign policy, gays in the military, the failure of American Intelligence, Gulf War Syndrome, the way that each generation heaps its war stories on the younger generation (namely the relationship between the Vietnam generation and the Gulf War generation), and the role that technology plays in modern warfare. Most importantly, though, it shows the human side to a war that was largely censored, and has been perceived by the American public as virtual and sanitary. And while Mr. Hudson is clearly opposed to war, he is just as quick to lampoon the Doves as he is the Hawks. It's rapidly becoming one of the most talked about books in the veteran message boards, a favorite of both young and old. I laughed a lot, sure, but I was also, somehow, very moved. It brought a lot of stuff back. It gave me a way to think about things I had previously not been able to think about. Thank you Mr. Hudson for your courage and bravery--for giving a voice to a group of men and women who have been largely marginalized and swept under the carpet by the government--especially now that Bush II wants to go make more of a mess over in Iraq. I cannot recommend this book highly enough, for civilians and veterans.

This semi-homage to Mrs. Dalloway follows the title character as he wanders around London on the first Monday after being fired from his longtime job as an accountant. Dressed and accesorized for work as usual, he walks, takes buses, and the subway, encountering performance artists, porno publishers, tennis players, museum goers, tourists, a TV presenter, his eldest son, a neighbor or two, and some bank robbers. These ambulatory and mental meanderings are recounted in a witty and restrained tone with deceptively simple precision. His lone quirk is an accountant's love of translating everything into numerical values, percentages, and probabilities. Lanchester is careful not to overuse this device, and thus it remains amusing and playful throughout.

Not surprisingly, Mr. Phillips spends a great deal of his time musing about sex, death, sex, love, sex, life, and soforth. The middle-aged, middle-class Londoner is clearly meant to be an everyman, a sympathetic type recognizable to all readers. So, although he has no particular "deep thoughts" or epiphanies over the course of his day, his interactions still leave one with a benevolent sense of humanity. It's a much more gentle and embracing book (despite some reader's prudish reactions to certain sexual details) than his well-received, if overly clever, debut, The Debt to Pleasure. This novel can almost be seen as the flipside to that one, totally different, but equally good. Not great, but good.

MR. PHILLIPS is a recent inductee into my personal Pantheon of great modern literature. This is a terrific - indeed, incandescent - little book about a single day in the life of a very ordinary middle-class Englishman who has just lost his job and hasn't yet broken the news to his family. There's nothing, and yet everything to this seemingly inconsequential work. It reminds us, again, that even at its bleakest, life is more comedy than tragedy. As a writer, Lanchester is, in the English way, a precisionist. Most of his conceits are so economic, sharp, original and outrageous that you read the entire book (it can be done in a few hours) shivering with pleasure and wishing that you yourself were half as talented.

Whew. It's good to be back in my own consciousness. John Lanchester's "Mr Phillips" is the literary equivalent of that wonderfully quirky film "Being John Malkovich" a few years ago. From the first sentence, we are dropped in medias res into the curiously cool mindset of just fired ("made redundant" in his accountant's patois) Mr Phillips. It is Monday morning as we lie in bed with slumbering Mrs Phillips and drift into our various fantasies of other women, each meticulously "rated" in a manner befitting an ob-com CPA. Thus are the two central motifs ignited: women (and sex generally) and descriptive numeracy of all sorts.

From here, fiftyish Mr Phillips, who has decided not to reveal his employment situation to his wife (or two grown sons,) goes through the typical work-a-day motions and finds himself wandering aimlessly for the first time in over thirty years. His observations and analyses place us squarely in London, which, as usual, becomes an outsized character per se, one which shapes and effects its teeming international amalgam. Throughout, we are treated to"number/probability/odds" rants about any and all things. Regarding the lottery frenzy, for example, we find that "proper" actuarial tables show that "in order for the probability of winning the jackpot to be greater than the odds of being dead by the time of the draw, one would have to bet no earlier than three and a half minutes before the draw." Put another way, death has a greater chance of finding us than does the lotto fairy. This is but one of hundreds of revelations, all put forth with a completely straight-face.

The tics, eccentricities, inner symbols, fears, joys, memories, and fantasies - both light and dark -crowd the currents of this odd stream of consciousness. But, honestly, I now need to go shower to get the Underground's grimy Tube air off myself. Good to have been there, but also good to be home. A wonderful artistic accomplishment with the added treat of enabling one to take a holiday in London for a mere pence an hour (depending, of course, on your reading rate, the current rate of inflation, the cost of your book, the....)

Satire is a very difficult topic to write well and to maintain the flow and quality over the course of an entire book is one of the rarest of achievements. This book is a satire on the Java language and while it has many good points that are quite funny, it does lag and at times, becomes a bit repetitive. Trust me, if you read this book with the thought that you will learn something significant about the Java language, you will be very disappointed. Reading it for any purpose other than amusement will probably bore you to going back to programming in BASIC.
However, if your purpose is to have a little fun and take some time to reduce your level of seriousness about the fast-paced world of programming, then this is a book that you may like. I have inserted the word "may" because it is necessary for you to have a taste for satire to enjoy it.
Quite frankly, I did not enjoy reading the first few pages, as I had not yet placed myself in the satirical state of mind. But once I did so, I went back to the start and read it over, enjoying the (un)subtle turn of computing phrases. This is not a book that everyone can enjoy, but if you fit the previously stated caveats, then it is possible to read it with pleasure.

Beyond words. This is one of the greatest texts ever written.

Amazingly Wacked !!

Like his previous Best Seller* that no normal person has ever heard of ("Mr. Bunny's Guide to Active X") this gem raises and answers questions that not even normal programmers (oxymoron?) would ever think to ask. E.g., "Which came first, the Comment or the Code?" -- answer -- White Space!

It pokes fun at everything from its own copyright "No part of this book ... blah, blah, blah, without the secret handshake." to resume writing suggestions "... listing your greatest accomplishments (unless, of course, you are Monica Lewinsky.)"

I liked "Diagram 1" which displayed everything from the top level ("Java Program") down to the lowest levels ("Pizza Crumbs" and "Tile or Carpet.")

The Common Programming Errors section (like everything else) was also was amazingly creative (and more importantly, funny!) -- including "Calling no argument constructor when there is no no-argument constructor is a no-no resulting in an argument with the compiler." and "C."

Finally, explaining the challenge the compiler faces -- making your java code understandable to a box of sand. (In all my years of compiler writing, I never though of this.)

Get this book!! Even if you're not a nerd, it will have you rolling. (What about the "Backward" which is, of course, the Forward in reverse!)

----

*I saw this #1 rating in "Boston Software Newspaper" also, one of the local book store owners told me they sold nearly twice as many "Mr. Bunny's Guide to Active X" last year as the #2 title.)

I read this book when I was in fifth or sixth grade when my mom recommended it to me, and now it's my turn to recommend this book to anyone.

Goodbye, Mr. Chips outlines the bittersweet life of Mr. Chips, an ancient professor at an English school, Brookfield, from his first year as a schoolmaster to his dying day. As an old-fashioned, eccentric, British gentleman, his views are sometimes obsolete, but his gentle and kidding nature brings happiness and sadness into his life. An important figure in Brookfield, once a person gets to know Mr. Chips, he/she will never forget him. I know I never will.

I marveled at this book, which passed my tests with flying colors. Mr. Chips was a delightful and subtle balance of a lovable, caring teacher and a mildly pathetic person...so real...so true to life. It's the story of an unfulfilled man who falls into his place in the world and grows to accept it as best he can, and becomes loved by others in the process.

I found myself increasingly awed by the writer's style as the book proceeded. There was an extreme comfort in his flow, like he knew exactly what he wanted to say and how to say it. He was brief yet descriptive, sometimes so perfectly and marvelously descriptive that it really brought me hook, line and sinker into the world of his story - rare in a book, and especially in one so gentle and tender. It was no surprise for me to find he wrote the book in four days - this book was no hard labor of creation...this book flowed from his essence. I don't think a book can get much better than this. This is what writing is all about. I wish libraries were full of books of this quality.

This work is a fine rendition of English literature around the
time of the 1880s or thereabouts. The main character, Mr. Chips
evolves into a personable old man who gains substantial
sympathy from the readership. This book is assigned in early
high school because of its excellent presentation and
innocent themes. The main character represents an instructor
who teaches generations of boys in a local middle or high school. The setting is in Brookfield, England. There is a
quaintness about the town, as well as the characters in the
book. The portal of time preceeded the 20th century when
teachers stayed in the same job and the same locale for
multiple generations. With each passing generation, the
graduating students would reminisce about teachers within
each others' common domain of experience. Mr. Chips was a
character not likely to be forgotten due to his longstanding
presence as a pedagogue to the many young students in Brookfield.
Students would critique his memory and style of teaching
year after year. The main character suffered through adversities
and celebrated better times. The work is memorable due to its
shear ordinariness. At times, the author shifts from the
present tense verbal structures to the past tense without
adequately preparing the reader. The general grammatical
thrust of the book is appropriate for the readership; namely,
young people. The work foretells a time past; however,
it's important for students to read literature from different
centuries in order to gain an overall perspective on world
history and comparative styles of writing in the English
language and other languages. Contrast the character of
Mr. Chips to that of Ebeneezer Scrooge in "A Christmas Carol"
by Charles Dickens. The character of Scrooge is far more
sophisticated and worldly. The story is more involved with
a complete evolution of the main character from a stingy
pennypincher to a generous patron of the local community.
The authors are similar in that the storylines are centered
on a single character throughout a lifetime. These English
authors were marvelous storytellers. They escorted the readers
through decades of experiences in the lives of the involved
characters. The works are important for readers of all ages
because they document ordinary and sometimes extraordinary
lives during the various stages of evolution and transition.

I wanted so much to like this book.

The premise is awesome: A crazy old Hungarian called Master Yehudi picks up a mostly homeless boy from St Louis with the promise of teaching him to fly. What could be greater than that? So for the next one hundred and fifty pages we go through the lessons and teachings of the master as he tries to teach Walt to be everything he couldn't: a boy capable of flying up and down and left and right and swooping and spinning and somersaults.

The narrator is, for the most part, told in the voice of a down on his luck boy, with appropriate slang and cadence that I would expect from a kid in the late twenties. It is a joy to read because of that, it really is. Very stubborn character to, the things he puts up with from master Yehudi is simply amazing. And in the end it pays off: he can fly and they set off to make their riches.

The next fifty pages or so recounts their travels and mishaps, fortunes and predicaments. Still an enjoyable book. The front cover of my book shows a Ku Klux Klan member, so I was predicting the direction the book would take, and I wasn't happy that it was going that way. But then it didn't, and the KKK played a very very minor part.

So what went wrong? *spoilers but you really shouldn't read this book anyway* Walt can't fly any more, master Yehudi recommends he should stop. Everything is still ok, the stage is set for the perfect scene where master Yehudi reveals how he learned the knowledge of flight and what the problems are. But that never happens. Instead they have cook up a stupid plan to go to Hollywood. Then that fails. Then Walt becomes a criminal. Then he owns a nightclub. Then he poorly explains to the reader why he wants to kill some random baseball star and goes to war. Then he returns and marries someone. Then she dies thirty years later and he meets up with some old friends. Sounds a bit rushed? That's how it felt for me reading it. All that happened in a hundred pages, and this was a very quick hundred pages where important events were glossed over and the narrator started rambling on about things I didn't care about.

To sum it up: the author sums it up. That is as good as I can tell it. The book went from a well-narrated story about a boy being able to fly to a rambling memoir that rushed to complete the end (if fifty years of a person's life can be called the end) of a boring person's life.

I was so disappointed by this. I can't recommend it, not at all. Maybe Paul Auster is a good author - and, technically, he is - but I'm going to be wary about reading something by him any time soon. I'd still like to look at the New York Trilogy, but after this...

Nikola Ruzicic (davor_ruzicic@bluewin.ch) This one really upset me! Mr. Vertigo doesn't have the strength of the other Paul Auster novels (Moon Palace or Leviathan). As it might be considered "good" by some standards it is nonetheless mediocre or even bad in comparison to the real Paul Auster. The story by itself might be considered "Austerian" but the development certainly isn't. It is too conventional for Auster and still to abstract for anything else. The characters are certainly well described in the first part but they tend to lose their strength in the second. As he covers the first 18 years of the life of Walt (the main character) in about 2/3 of the book he shrinks the rest of it to a mere short story that might as well be sold separately. He does this in other books but there the shortness aquires a significance as part of something bigger whereas in Mr. Vertigo it even makes the whole a lot weaker. I hope this was the first and last of Auster's adventures into mediocrity and given his previous books I think we can forgive him, though ... Rating 5 because it is much better than many other books but ... it isn't worth Paul Auster.

I think I heard someone once refer to MR. VERTIGO as Auster-lite. And on a first reading, sure, it does seem like he's pulled back and gone for a lighter touch with this one.

A second reading revealed that, no, this was Auster, full-strength. But I don't see this a a Paul Auster novel. No, this is a Paul Auster tale. Walt and Master Yehudi are wonderful characters who come to life in a way that reminds me of stories i used to hear as a kid from older people. At time and place far removed and some truly incredible goings on.

This certainly isn't Auster's best, I'd say Leviathon (today anyway) has that honor. However, if you are a fan of his work, you need to read this book. And I'd suggest a couple of readings, actually. if you are just now coming to Auster, well, i'd suggest Moon Palace or The Music of Chance as the place to start. I would say the trilogy, but i've talked to some who were a little put off by it originally. I don't get that, but so be it.

The classic Dr. Jekyll and Mr. HYde by the famous author Robert Louis Stevenson with an afterword by Jerome Charyn,was quite hard to understand. As most novels usually start hard to understand, the end was just as hard to as well. The old english in this novel was probably not as hard to understand while it was still being spoken when this book was published in 1886, but over 100 years later, the language got me off track. Although I had liked the plot of a scientist by day, evil character by night, everything just seemed too hard to comprehend.

This book had its ups and downs it was also short. The intoduction put everything into sense like when it was said the trues meaning of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde's names. They are both of Scandinavian origin as Hyde comes from the Anglo-Saxon hyd which is Danish hide "a haven", and Jekyll comes from the Danish name Jokulle, which means "an icicle", and by not knowing the backround of the names some might think that Hyde means a place for hiding. I liked this book because it was exciting except for the begining of the novel when it was just talking about the characters and what they do. My favorite chapter was Search for Mr. Hyde because thats when we first get to see Mr. Hyde because they would only say little thing that would keep you guessing, and once I found out what he looked like I was excited to read more.
I would have to say that the best character was Dr. Henry Jekyll. I liked how he was sneaky and in the end of the book he tryed to be the good guy and stop taking the potion. It was also interesting when it was kind of throught the end of the novel when you find out that Jekyll and Hyde were very close. I would recondmend this book to almost anyone because I'm not much of a reader, but I really enjoyed this book.

Along with "Dracula" and "Frankenstein," Robert Louis Stevenson's "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" is a part of that great immortal triad of gothic terrors from the 19th century from which a seemingly endless stream of fans, imitators, critics, and dreamers continue to derive unmitigated inspiration. But despite its classic status, and the fact that virtually everyone in the English-speaking world can instantly recognize the story's title, few have ever actually read Stevenson's little nightmare (the Bantam edition runs to no more than 114 pages, including Jerome Charyn's afterword)or even seen one of its many cinematic incarnations. Of the aforementioned trio, "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" certainly appears the most neglected. This, despite the fact that it is certainly the most accessible. It is indeed much shorter than either "Dracula" or "Frankenstein," and anyone with good eyes can read it in a day. Even the visually challenged amongst us can do so in two. More importantly, this book is certainly the best written of the three (in)famous works, as Stevenson was by far the most proficient and thoroughly accomplished wordsmith of the authors who gave us these benighted classics. Moreover, despite its reputation as a horror story, it is in fact more of a Victorian mystery, and for those who do not much care for horror is surely a more palatable selection than either of its brothers.

That last point is perhaps part of the problem. Readers who come to Stevenson's novella expecting to find a giant Hyde rampaging through London like Godzilla in Tokyo, or even doing his best Hannibal Lecter imitation, will be sadly disappointed. "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" is not about blood and thunder, however valuable those elements undeniably are in their proper place. Rather, it is a story of philosophy, soul-searching, sin and redemption. It is a subtle, scholarly tale in which much is implied but little shown, and where the goblins which haunt the London fog are only rarely permitted to stumble out to us. The modern reader, particular one weaned on such drivel as the "Scream" movies or "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," will have to unlearn much he may have come to believe about effective fantasy in order to savor Stevenson's masterpiece.

Beyond that, the story's classic status and innumerable adaptations and parodies in the cinema and pop culture (particularly in the classic Bugs Bunny episode) have vampirized the tale of much of its major element--mystery. Nobody today opens this book with any doubt as to the true relationship between Henry Jekyll and Edward Hyde. However bowlderized our modern perceptions of this story have become, we nonetheless all know from the outside where Hyde really comes from. So the mystery that must have been so opaque, so innovative and exciting to the original audience that had nothing but Stevenson's own story to go by, is denied us. To some, that makes reading this book little more than a minor chore.

And that's a shame, because no matter how familiar this tale of the duality of Man and his eternal struggle between his Dark and Light sides may have become to us, it remains one of the most readable and thoroughly pleasurable books of its era. Stevenson's prose is precise, and with short, sure strokes he paints a tapestry of the human psyche and its unhallowed depths the like of which no modern slasher film has ever approached. Granted, the story may have been better served to give Hyde a bit more time on-stage. Perhaps some of the characters could have used some more fleshing-out. An epilogue might have served to tie the narrative up more securely...

...may, perhaps, might...ultimately those words do not matter, for whatever "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" might not be is irrelevant compared to what it is: the penultimate masterpiece of gothic mystery, and a classic that will endure long after that very genre has itself otherwise disappeared. Read it for what it is, and enjoy.

Of all the Excel books I consult, the most dismal in quality, accuracy, and clarity, is, without competition, Mr Excel. Time and time again I find myself frustrated with unclear, hard-to-follow text and samples due to mistakes, typos, or just plain sloppiness--on page after page. Anybody with the author's level of education and training should be ashamed to take credit for such a schlocky production and our money should be refunded at double the rate we paid for it. I am a professional analyst consultant and the Mr Excel book is a waste of my time and money.

As both a long-term book editor and a lover of Excel, I am always on the lookout for good Excel books. An acquaintance showed me "Mr Excel on Excel" and I was not impressed.

There did not seem to be an easy flow to the information presented. In many cases I had to read the same material several times over to get the gist of what was being said. Had this book crossed my editorial desk, I would have definitely spent more time smoothing out these areas, and making them easier for an audience of all levels. As an advanced Excel user, I'm afraid that beginners to Excel may find it a little difficult to follow at times.

Let me get right to the point - This is a great book! If you're serious about mastering excel get this book.

I knew it was going to be useful when straight off there was a chapter on using the keyboard rather than the mouse! Something I found more than advantageous and time saving years ago - I'm glad this view is shared and passed along. This alone will save you hours of work time.

If you crunch numbers for a living, you'll be happy to know this is the book you've been looking for! Its down to business approach is an accountant's dream!