Book Is GREAT, But Editor Should Be Fired!
582522
I agree with other reviewers in that much of the content is not new to those who closely followed this case, but the facts shown from the point-of-view of the Prosecutors (as oppossed to the media or Defense's talking heads) is refreshing. The thing that drove me crazy throughout this book (at least the Kindle version) was the terrible editing! Mistakes ranged from misspelling witness names (Amy Huizenger instead of Amy Huizenga) to getting dates wrong! Ugh. The most annoying mistakes were the trial dates: The editor stated the trial started on Tuesday, 23 May 2011. WRONG! It started on Tuesday, 24 May 2011. Perhaps I'm being nit-picky, but it's simple mistakes like those that can make the author look careless. Someone please fire the editor and republish the corrected book!
357364
I have just finished reading the Kindle edition of "Last Words" and it's brilliant and funny and well worth reading. However, I was struck by how awful the copy editing and production is. The book is so full of typos it's like reading a blog or something. Words are run together, and many proper names are uncapitalized. The title of chapter 18 is written as "BWING, DOING, GETTING", for instance (it's correctly written as "BEING", not "BWING", in the TOC). The photo at the head of Chapter 15, identified as "George and Patrick Carlin", is in fact a photo of Carlin performing, repeated from the previous chapter. And so on. Really, this is shockingly bad. I hope the print edition is better.

Still, great book!
535556
I'm not sure if English is Dallas and Melissa Hartwig's first language or not, but the editors should have caught the glaring mistakes before this book went to print!  The introduction, written by Luc Readinger is lovely, and made me want to read more, but shortly after reading the intro I was overwhelmed by grammatical mistakes.  One small but extremely annoying example that is repeated frequently ":.. foods make you more healthy". I'm sorry, but foods make you healthier, not "more healthy" ( healthy, healthier,  healthiest).  If they can't get the grammar right why should I believe that the science is correct?
The really annoying thing is that the science might indeed be correct!  I understand that the language has been simplified so that the average joe can understand what is being said, but that can be done with the proper use of grammar.  Educated people do know the difference!
540158
The editing is so bad I can't enjoy the story.  I can't believe author has not gone back to fix errors.  I loved his book Jane's Melody.  This book SBB -- I guess is his first and you can tell.  My advice to the author...go back and edit for typos, grammar, punctuation, etc.  and resubmit to Amazon so those of us who want to enjoy the story can get an updated version and try again.
3003976
UPDATE 9/2013 -- they updated the ebook in March -- presumably they had a human read through it, this time -- and it appears to be entirely fixed. Rating updated!

***

A wonderful book, a marvelous book. This rating is all about the publisher.

The Kindle e-book has enough typos to make a fourth grade teacher weep. 1 have to believe no one at Random H0use Proofread this even once aHer chopping up a print- ed copy and feeding it through their "make an ebook" mach- ine? There are hundreds of these little distractions. The book ends: "Copyright  1988 by the Estate of halo Calvino." halo and his wondrous ideas deserve better.
767511
A great book ruined by editing, cutting and formatting!  First of all, it's ginormous!  (See photo below.)  I have no idea what the people who published, (and are making money from,) this book were doing.  Bad formatting with unclear paragraphs, misspellings, blank portions of pages make this edition annoying.  Leaving out entire paragraphs that are in the original is inexcusable.  They have also probably violated the copyright in doing so.

They have deleted all reference to Jesus, and similar terms, unlike Joel Goldsmith's original work.  Compared line by line to the original, and earlier editions this book is an insult to the legacy of a great metaphysical teacher.  If they want to publish an edited, expurgated, sanitized version of a book, it should be so described on the book itself as well as the Amazon description.  They have ruined and altered a great work, and have done the same with other books they publish.

Stick with the DeVorss editions, (they're accurate,) or used older hardcover editions prior to 1990.  Whatever you do, don't waste your money, as I did, on this piece of garbage!
2170088
Being a descendant of JNB, I loved the story which was, for the most part, accurate. I can't help but wonder who edited the book, however. I have never read a book with so many spelling, punctuation, and grammatical errors. I'm sure that's not all Jimmy Clay's fault, but someone should have proof-read the book and caught all these mistakes. Example: Early on in the book, I did not know if Holland Coffee traded in furs or firs (trees) because the word was spelled both ways repeatedly. BTW, Holland Coffee was the name of JNB's first child who only lived a short time. I thought that should have been pointed out. And the crowning blow to me was that my great-grandfather's name was spelled Lather in the book. His name was Alexander Luther Bryan, and he went by Luther.
I could give you many more examples, but I don't want to take away from the value of the book as an interesting historical story, even though it is a novel. I'm grateful to Jimmy Clay for getting the book published at all.
3037397
So sorry, Sensei, no disrespect intended, but you desperately need a rewrite with a talented editor. The book is like great karate, ugly. The spelling, grammar, and many of the examples are in desperate need of repair. Sentence structures, paragraphs, and arguments are not properly laid out. In more than one place, the illustrations clarified the writing, but in a couple of spots the illustrations were a hindrance. If this were even a junior high school paper, any English teacher would be very angry and feel that you weren't paying attention in class. Yeah, I know that was a long time ago, but an editor could fix that for you. No, I'm not an editor, but I've been reading every day since I was about 5 years old and now I'm over 50.

Outside of that, the book has great information in it, and obviously alot of folks don't care about the writing style. I'm very happy with the book and the information, I just know it can be presented much better with a little help from your friends. Find a student in your schools who loves reading and writing and let them help you rewrite it.

I'd give it a "D", even though the information is timeless and should be maintained.

Oh, but I give it 5 stars cuz I loves it anyhow. I wish for your peace and prosperity, as well as an editor.
227963
I love the universe that Phipps created and his stories are nice and easy to read.  However I don't know if I got an early version of the book when I downloaded it from Amazon but the editing is horrible.  I understand that it is a self-published novel, I write also and self-publish, but there are mistakes on every single page it seems.

Would I recommend this book? Yes. its a great read once you ignore the editing.

Do I think its priced well, yes but please try and reread it and fix the easy to spot mistakes!
886659
I would have loved to give this book 4 or more stars....premise was great, loved the characters and the two POVs.  BUT (and it's a big one) IT NEEDS A BETTER EDITOR!!!  Please get it fixed!
2346707
Giving this book four stars is a stretch. I love the story itself and recommend it as a good read. I love this series. However, the editing errors in the first half of the book are crazy distracting. I beg that the author please use a better editor. These books are so full of heart and I can quickly read out the errors, they just seem so unnecessary.
I don't mean for all that to sound so harsh, I really did love the book and I am so looking forward to more in the series!! Please spend the money and read the books just be patient with some of the editing. I really wanted to give this one 5 stars!!
1137247
The content is, of course, excellent, and deserves 5 stars.  The editing, however, is shoddy and annoying.  It's a pity Fitch couldn't see a professional copy of his classic work before he died.
There are misspelled words: "ideed" vs. "indeed," p 13; "pressence" vs. "presence," p 55;  "centure" vs. "century," p247; "Sienna" vs. "Siena," p 329, and others).  Wrong dates are given: "...completely reconstructed to an assumed date of 1976" vs. 1776, p 275.  Different information is given regarding the same process: ("flourescent dyes had to be added," p 338 vs. "had to be stamped with a metal die," p 342).  LeMoyne is referred to as "LeMoyne" and as "Lemoyne," pp 17 & 18; Anne Cunningham is referred to as both "Anne" and "Ann," pp ix, x, 89, 90.  Comma and semicolon use is weak, the use of italics with foreign words is inconsistent.
669483
The meat of the story is here. The meat of the story is great. But this book really suffers from two things: One, a lot happens too quickly.  The book could have honestly been longer and it would have helped. I wish the movement between events had more time between.  Making the events feel frantic is one thing, but I sometimes ideas were only half cooked or thrown in and it obscured the story. Two, the book is so poorly edited.  There are glaring mistakes: words left out, wrong forms of words, sentences that are just fragments or run on much too long.  And these mistakes are all over the place.

The story is great, don't get me wrong. I loved the ending. I just feel that the book was released before it truly found its final draft.
2676665
First, the good:
As a parent of a 9 month girl and a 4 year old boy, I was so excited to purchase this book! I've gotten 3/4 the way through it and I can say that the information is practical and sensible. I've already decluttered the kitchen and am doing closets next (we never acquired a toy problem).

And the bad:
ONE IMPORTANT NOTE (and the reason for the lost star)...
The author should have invested in an editor. There are multiple grammar issues in the book, and just as many punctuation errors. I am not an English teacher, but I am also a self-published author and I take my own writing and editing very seriously. It is very distracting and takes my impression of Mr. Becker down a few notches. There are too many details to list here (including run-on sentences, lack of formatting for lists, sentence fragments, hyphenated words that shouldn't be hyphenated, and lots of pronoun abuse) but I encourage the author to release a new, edited version (probably easy to do as this is clearly a self-published project - which I'm all for!). At that point I will revise my review and give it 5 stars for the content. It is too good a message to have errors! Overall, well worth it...but be warned if that sort of thing bothers you.
3051548
This book is obviously the product of the "spell checker" editing mode. The content is wonderful; but this book apparently never passed under the eyes of a human proofreader. I have seen 4 typos in one paragraph! I think the publisher should be embarrassed to have charged for this "draft". I have learned many tips from this book, but I question the recipes after noting the plethora of typos. I hope this book will be reissued in a properly edited form - it is a wonderful resource, but horribly jarring to read in it's current form.
3894383
I downloaded this Kindle book two hours ago and finished it in one sitting. I am grateful to Mr. Connelly for many new ideas about ways to become a better reader. Readers will find some of these tips and techniques invaluable.

Despite these words of praise, I rated the book at two stars. Why? It was not because the book was self-published, but because the author did not employ a copy editor before publishing. The result is insufficient punctuation to make sense of the author's complete sentences, incomplete sentences, and run-on quasi-sentences. Typos and/or misspellings abound.

If this sloppiness is not offensive to readers, it should be. If this is the future of publishing, we're all in trouble.
1608683
The information in the book is extremely helpful for editing. But, the author should have taken her own advise and had it professionally edited. If you can look past the errors, as I did, this is a very informative book.