Poor taste to put photos of American Servicemen's bodies in the book.
937708
Very tasteless of the author to put a photo of the bodies  from the downed pilots from this aircraft in the book.  I was looking forward to reading the book since by accident I took a photo of gravestone of the Ball Turrent Gunner when visiting the WWII cemetery in the Ardennes.  However, when seeing a photo of his broken body in the book, I felt it was totally tasteless.  Why would you need to put bodies of American servicemen in a book that you were writing to promote their experience?
3447209
I bought this book on a whim. I liked the concept of the book and I saw some nice photos from it, like the one on the cover. The content however, dissapoints. The photo's just aren't very good. The overall atmosphere is that of 1990's amateur nude photography.

Perhaps not much more can be expected of non-photographers. But I was hoping for a charming, low-fi low-tech DIY look that would make up in personality for what it lacks in professionality. In stead, it's aiming for a high-key 'glamour' look and failing miserably.

I also thought the idea of having the camera and cable release in most of the photos would be charming, but in stead I found it distracting. Paradoxically, I feel a good photographer would have been less noticeably there than the cable release is - in other words, the photos would have felt more private if they had been shot by someone else.

Interesting to browse through once or twice but not a book I could recommend.
1813725
Print version has grainy black and white photos. The poor quality of the photos took away whatever excitement I had towards reading the book when I got it. The photos almost looks like photocopy quality. The book looks self-published and the photos were probably done in this manner to save costs. But it is still a book about cooking where color 'tells' the other part of the story. Imagine looking at medium rare sous vide cooked meat in shades of gray. How appetizing is that?
1594408
The main disappointment in this book is that most of the photos were in black and white and poor quality.  The book is overpriced for the level of information given and useless photos. The books by Robert Runge run circles around this one- hands down!
354979
The video was maybe a 3-star effort, tops, with atrocious film editing.  But the book is a serious contender for the dubious honor of Worst Ever Written On Any Subject.  The only reason I give it two stars is that it contains a couple of interesting narratives I've not seen elsewhere.

The text is thoroughly riddled with factual errors, proving that neither the author (a political specialist) nor editors were remotely competent in their subject.  But the photo captions are so egregious that one hardly knows where to begin.  A typical entry: "Soviet pilot wearing a belt."  That's downright erudite compared to some others, including the familiar shot of 361st FG Mustangs identified as Japanese floatplanes.  Many other planes are misidentified, and the poor to OK-quality photos include some like prewar racers that have no bearing on the subject.  Why George Bush's adventures in a torpedo plane are included is anyone's guess.

The bottom line: a waste of paper.  The publisher should be ashamed...but apparently isn't.
3204075
My grandson read this book as a part of his summer reading program. Thank goodness that I, a member of the generation that fought in that war, was available and able to tell him the REAL story of the war. The problem with this book is that it was written specifically to make the war "understandable" for young readers. Because the author chose that way to tell the story, he intentionally left out facts and events in his narrative that deprive young readers of the "real" truth. Anyone who reads this book should be cautioned to look more deeply into the events leading up to the war, and look for accounts written by servicemen who served there. As evidence of this I submit that anyone reading this book will not be able to understand why Senator John Kerry was "swiftboated", which was a significant contributor to his loss in his bid for the Presidency. Similarly, young moviegoers will not understand why no Vietnam veteran is "Fonda", "Hanoi Jane" Fonda.
1124184
Sorry to say I was dissapointed in this book. I was thrown off a good bit too by the photos shown with the cover photo on the Amazon page. Those photos DO NOT appear at all in this book. It is a large format very thin 32 page book. The photos while wonderful subject...obviously since it's Michael, are not very new or unique images. There is a interview in it very short and spread through the book in very large print, not a in depth one at all. I suppose the photos are worth buying it but if you are looking for ones shown ,.,,they aren's there! The images are fairly clear but many are "sepia" which is a reddish type wash over them...I guess they thought this was effective. I personally didn't like it.
2855720
Nice book for veteran info, but lacks hard details and collector info. Pictures are poor and lack any detail for in hand reference purpose. I got this and his Complete M1 garand book for Christmas which  is the same so I'm not out anything. Look elsewhere for real collector information.
988432
I really like the I Grandi Fotografi book series. However this particular photographer is not my idea of good photography. His photos are during the time period where photography suffered. It's not the photographers fault necessarily it's just a result of the style from that era. The only photo I found to be unique and intriguing was the one used for the cover. After that it's a series of photos that detik the style of the times. Most of the photos look like cheesy advertisements for bad clothing styles.

I gave this book 2 Stars because I did find a little inspiration from the photographs. There is little writing in the book mostly just photos. And remember that these are Italian books. I purchase mine on a different site because it was unavailable through Amazon at the time.
1988127
I like the photos but wish some restoration work had been done on them before they were put in the book to bring them back as close as possible to the way the look when they were originally taken.  This is a picture book, but there are no captions on each page.  The formatting is poor, in that the index provides is a name and a link to the picture, but if you want to read the caption for each photo prior to opening it you'd have to go back to the index after viewing each image as there is no text accompanying each picture.  I think the author should revise the book and put a caption on each page with the photo telling us something about the picture, if the names of the models have been lost to history at least give us an idea of what year the photos were taken.  The page turning animation is OK, but unnecessary--I guess Amazon felt that it had to follow Apple in the way it presents e-books--but the animations just slow the transition form one page to the next--I know I'm not reading a print book, so for me to enjoy a book it's not necessary to make it look like I'm turning virtual pages; I'd rather they resolve issues with formatting, which makes it look less like an actual print book and detracts from the content.
2670611
This book is unbelievably bad. The style is hard to read. There are bad detailed mistakes on equipment used by the US troops. But overall, it is a bad choice of style used to describe an important part of our military history.
1950098
I like Mr.  Dicorcia's images but this book is a little bit of much a do about nothing.
It invites you to look quickly at many seemingly snap shot images mixed with more staged images
printed to look like they were zeroxed on cheap paper before binded together in this book.
What's the point?
It's almost as if the photographer was putting a book together and than just decided to go with
the mock up rather than editing and giving us a more thoughful well printed result.
Not worth the price.
Salome
4310997
I thought I was going to like this book since I tend to gravitate to books on the military, but I found it to be off the mark. The author has stated that her book was inspired by the conditions at Walter Reed, but this sounds like "ripped from the Headlines" as a way to woo readers. The female characters were not particularly likeable, and I think sympathetic characters are important to stories of this nature.
506618
"199 Vaginas: The Ultimate Photo Collection" is anything but what the title says.  Unfortunately, this book does not do the subject matter justice at all.  While the concept of the book is great; a collection of much diversity, the execution was just horrible.  The editor of this book should be canned.

As someone who deeply appreciates the subject matter of this book, I was very let down by the low resolution and low quality of every photo in the book.  its quite unfortunate because the pictures could have been very good.  But when I buy a book whose central focus is the vagina, I expect to get a book of high quality images on thick, glossy stock.  I expect to get a book of vaginas that shows explicit detail where i can see every line, every follicle of hair and every drop of moisture.  Instead, I get a book of matte stock and low resolution images in which up close detail is severely lacking.  Its insulting to the viewer, and its insulting to the subject matter.  Images look pixelated, and when you come across an image that was shot three feet away or more from the subject, you can't see any detail, only vague, blocky representations of what appears to be a vagina.

This book was made to show us a diverse variety of vaginas, but instead we got crappy collection of distorted vulvas.

I will be returning this book.  If it was reprinted with higher quality images, I might consider adding this one to my collection.  But as it stands right now, its a waste of time and money, even to that serious connoisseur of the subject matter.  If you're looking for a book full of vaginas, might I suggest you take a 'pass' on this one.
4385998
There are too many photos of Hitler in this book.  Do you really want to improve your body language by studying Hitler?

Also, the authors rudely compared a photo of George W. Bush to a photo of a chimp, and they complain about Bill Clinton too much.

Too political and too much Hitler.

One star.
3705523
How do you make a famous fighting unit look boring.  Well, you write a book about it.  Then you add some pictures that kind of depict the unit involved.  I was disappointed with this book.  As one of the previous reviewers has already stated, they have pictures of other units in this book and attribute them to the French Foreign Legion.  One picture on page 147 clearly shows French Marines, with a caption of the Foreign Legion with their weapons.  There were problems with editing on this book as well.

The first portion of the book details the history of this famous unit.  It is a short summary history and doesn't add a lot of detail.  Then it covers some of the units and their specialities.  This also is not exciting reading.  Then they cover the armaments and transportation for the Legion.  As one might guess, this is the same for the French Army.  The second part of the book plus the mistakes with the photos certainly drove the rating down on this writing.  If one wants a good history of the Foreign Legion, try Porch's book.
3818002
If I could rate this book in negative stars I would.  I am a 12-year Marine Corps combat veteran and have been following the Marines in Iraq closely.  I recommend The March Up and Generation Kill but this picture book is a waste of time and money.  The pictures are entirely of rear echelon types in Camp Fox and other camps washing their hair, wrestling, standing in line at the PX.  Not a single combat photo except two pictures of a burnned out Amtrak in two locations in the book and one of an M1 Abrams that flipped off a bridge.  The photographer should have got some guts and gone and got some good Marine Grunt combat photos.  What a waste.