The book may be great, but shame on Harper Perennial
583687
I don't think I've ever marked down a book purely for production reasons, but the typography in the paperback edition is terrible.

E.g.,
"'Coop went to the cof feepot. "Mo uth on her too,' he said."

There's no excuse for this given the sophistication of digital type now. The book is beautifully written, but don't waste your money on this paperback edition. It's too distracting to slog through the bad typography.
4543969
I have to agree with the reviewer J. Coates. This book should be a five star just for the originality of the subject matter, and the author's excellent coverage. But the publisher has defeated the author's intention, which is to display the rich history of timelines.

I will give you just one example from many. On page 143, the book shows two images from Auguste Comte's Positivist calendar from 1849. Each of these images is about 80mm by 40mm: about one-tenth the size of the original, as far as I can tell. Unless you are using the Large Hadron Collider to get a better view, the images provide only the vaguest of approximations.

There is no point in buying this book if you are over the age of 40: your eyes simply will not be able to cope without a magnifying glass and a Maglite for illumination. The font size of the body text is somewhere between eensy-weensy and really eensy-weensy, and the font size used for captions makes a 6-point font look like banner headlines.

I don't know if the publisher shafted the author, or if the author colluded in this massacre of his own vision. One day a better publisher will reprint the work in a much larger format, and then we shall have a truly great work to read.
4109587
This "book" should have been a free download for Harper Lee fans who were interested in it. I blame the publishers for advertising it as they did. It is in no way, shape, or form a sequel.
4777952
All I can say is that I was extremely disappointed when I realized this is Brandy Purdy's original novel "Vengeance is Mine" with a new title and book cover. The story itself is worth five stars as it is an excellently crafted work and I remember being unable to put down the original. Unfortunately, if you have already purchased or read the original; you will more than likely be a bit upset when you realize this is just a reprint. The book description on Amazon makes no note of this, nor does the book jacket. You will only find a statement regarding this as a post by Brandy Purdy on her Amazon Authors page.

I have a small fortune invested in books related to Tudor history and Tudor fiction and would have rather spent my money on something I haven't already read or own.

I am extremely disappointed in the way the publisher handled this!

&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Vengeance-Is-Mine-A-Novel-of-Anne-Boleyn-Katherine-Howard-and-Lady-Rochford-the-woman-who-helped-destroy-them-both/dp/0595481248/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Vengeance Is Mine: A Novel of Anne Boleyn, Katherine Howard, and Lady Rochford--the woman who helped destroy them both.</a>
2062374
I just got my hardcover copy of Henry Kissenger's newly published On China (Penguin). I enjoyed the NY Times excerpts on Saturday and ordered the book at once from Amazon. I am sure I will enjoy the reading; but I am disappointed in the plain design of the cover and jacket.  And where are the full-color, fold-out maps needed to understand China's place in the world? It is not your fault, Amazon, but who else can I blame?

Why is it that cookbooks, books on art and architecture, and coffee-table books are beautifully illustrated and often innovatively bound but that even the most important nonfiction works show little of the bookbinder's and book designer's crafts? I gladly would pay a 50% premium for the same book in a premium edition.

If we can have Kindle and other digital editions that are stripped bare of all but the words, can we not have something else that looks good on the shelf, is fun to touch, and makes a handsome gift? McLuhan was mostly right, "The medium is the message."  On China may be seen by many as an important book, even a valuable book; too bad it is not a beautiful book.

Perhaps this explains why I can not read my Kindle unless it has on its red, Moroccan leather jacket.
2987555
My library of Christian literature numbers in the 1000's. This is my most cherished book.

However, I deeply regret that at the time of writing, the Harper edition is so expensive ($11.97) for such a poorly made book. It's quality is comparable to a Mass Published Paperback. My pages have already started to yellow after 4 years of ownership.

I'm ok with poorly made books if they are made more accessible and affordable. But for this edition, HarperOne should be ashamed. I really hope a more reputable publisher will pick up this book.

Nonetheless, I'm thankful that it is in print. If it ever goes out of print, it is sign that the health of the evangelical world is in decline. In spite of the poor printing, still buy this book anyways. Just don't expect the HarperOne copy to last more than two readings. I'd look for another edition.
2341134
I bought this book for my Kindle so that I could use it as a source in my POLS 497 Senior Seminar in Political Science final research paper at American Military University. I have no beef with de Tocqueville, mind you. His work is as brilliant as ever. BUT, the listing on Amazon said this is a BANTAM CLASSIC published in 2010, which led me to expect those little accoutrements, like page numbers, and a real copyright date. Instead, there are no page numbers, and where the Bantam Classic copyright notice should be, I instead found this: "copyright 2002, Western Standard Pulbishing [...]".

Now, I did not buy a book from OriginalSources.com. I bought a book from Bantam Classics, at least that is what the misleading publication information caused me to believe. Now I am not even sure if I can use this book as a source, because it gives false publication information. OUCH! Not happy, Amazon. Just another reminder of why I use Apple's iBooks WAY more often.
3857804
I am sure this is a better than three-star book, and look forward to reading it when it is offered at a Kindle price, and not an academic coffeetable hardcover price like eighteen bucks. It is always particularly aggravating when free market enthusiasts allow themselves to be published or marketed by people with so little understanding that a price point like this is simply keeping people away and profits down.
2234162
I love this guy's website, and I no longer buy tree-books... but I won't buy an e-book that's more expensive than the dead-tree edition.  Come on Harper Collins, don't be stupid.  You're losing money because of your e-book pricing.
4323354
I like some of Hedges work but in general I don't like this sort of narrative nonfiction regardless of the political message. I recommend reading the 1 star reviews and the 5 star reviews before buying the book. Also, it is outdated. I don't think Hedges is the person best suited to critique the religious right. I would recommend the books of Sara Diamond who is brilliant and writes in a much more objective manner.

I create and maintain educational websites, Midwest Independent Research. I have a website on democracy and politics, mwir-democracyandpolitics.blogspot com.
658849
<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Larding-the-Lean-Earth-Soil-and-Society-in-Nineteenth-Century-America/dp/0809064308/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Larding the Lean Earth: Soil and Society in Nineteenth-Century America</a>&nbsp;My husband purchased the 2003 paperback edition of this book for a class. The content of the book is fine. The problem is that every odd numbered page from 145 to the last page grows increasingly blurred until finally becoming illegible. I have never owned a book suffering from such poor quality printing and intend to ask the publisher for another copy. Hill & Wang should be ashamed.
804960
Poorly written, offensive racial content and POV. Casts To Kill a Mockingbird in a poor light, too, probably a good thing since TCM is one of the most highly lauded and widely taught American novels. Time to re-evaluate TCM and contrast it to the masterful treatment through limited POV of similar issues in Huckleberry Finn. Substituting Twain for Harper Lee would go a long way to elevate the curriculum.
3156983
Nora honey,
It's bad when we, your people, your reading public, feels ripped off by your book. I bought it for my IPAD, because I've loved your perspective ever since you wrote a magazine (Esquire? Vanity Fair) article years ago about beauty and how you were growing into your looks while the beautiful women you knew were struggling with losing theirs as they aged. But when I got to the end, I thought there was a problem with the download: where's the rest?

There were things I Iiked here: the Christmas Story, for instance. But I read this in a little over an hour, and it felt like you barely made the effort. Maybe some publisher convinced you to publish this, because when you have a name, it sells no matter what's inside. But it's a bad idea. Now we think less of you.

Really.
Sincerely.
4488844
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.  I'm sure I'd be getting more out of the book if I was already familiar with the podcast.  But I'm not.  I wanted so much to like this book.  But I'm not.  Not sure what the authors were going for here, but the book reads as if it wanted to be Neil Gaiman and turned out to be James Joyce.  Wow, I get such a headache trying to read it.  The authors must have migraines from constructing it.  The homage reviews here are more fun than the book itself, and spot on, y'all!  I'm sure that somewhere in there must be the Gothic, emotional, strange, wonderfulness that the reviews foretell, but the incremental-minutiae delivery style makes it inaccessible.  I can't bond with the characters or the plotline.  I've had the book for over a week and I'm on page 42.  I'm ditching.  Sorry, world.  I'm usually more tenacious.  Headache.
4573645
CESAR, on April 6, 2015, wrote in a review that the book's cover will appear as what now appears as the placeholder picture in the upper right corner -- that is, a blue and green background empty of anything other than a blurry man walking across the minimalist, digital photoscape while a young woman sits in a white chair reading a book. If one previews the book (as of today), one will see a different cover of the book, and, like many other Pearson-Longman-Routledge print on demand (POD) texts, the preview shows an attractive cover appropriate for the book and its contents. One assumes that the bizarre stock art (which is used for a number of other volumes that the publishing conglomerate sells) will not be the art on the cover of the actual book. I received this book on May 13, 2017, and my cover looks exactly like the one that CESAR received.

Jennie writes a rebuttal review dated December 11, 2016, in which she alleged that the book's cover is not the one that CESAR claims it to be, and I don't doubt that the particular volume that she received has the cover that she posted as an image and that the preview function implies it to be. That said, the picture that Jennie claims is THE paperback cover is not THE paperback cover. It is one of at least two covers, and it is the one that Jennie received. CESAR describes the same cover that I received, an image of which I have attached for the reader's aesthetic enjoyment.

This is NOT the first issue that I have had with strange and bizarre POD volumes ordered via Amazon. I think POD--like anything else that wags the dog's long tail--is great, but many people who order POD books value physical books for more than just their content. If publishers cannot guarantee that we're purchasing what they purport to be selling, POD books will become an option that bibliophiles will avoid rather than embrace.

But--hey--at least it's Philip II who looks like a anachronistic goofy mime on the cover of his biography. Even the worst of the Plantagenets--Richard II and Henry III and Edward II and John--look dignified.
1908284
The stories by both authors are wonderful, I am a devoted fan of McNaught. I just find it upsetting - and a easy way to mislead people into spending money on something they've already read - to reprint stories that appeared one or maximum two years ago under a new title and cover. Anyone not careful is just going to see the new title and the authors names and will  buy to be disappointed afterwards. I really don't like this approach - so I'm rating that and not the content which is very good.
4311824
One of my favourite books of my childhood.  I flicked through this new edition in the bookshop the other day and was disappointed to note not only that the original charming illustrations been replaced by awful characterless rubbish, but 'Cousin Dick' has been renamed throughout as 'Cousin Rick', presumably because a'modern' publisher would be ashamed to let a child read the word 'Dick' for fear that they'd undergo a paroxysm of giggling from which they'd never recover, or perhaps through fear of not appearing sufficiently streetwise.... Senseless,  pointless meddling by marketing idiots with nothing better to do; lamentable pre-emptive cowardice; total lack of respect for an author who has served the publishing industry well for more than half a century; and insulting condescension to her audience (would they do this to an author whose books are bought by any other section of the reading public? "Moby Rick", perhaps?  I don't think so).

It's a great book anyway, but boycott these idiots and find a secondhand copy of the older edition if you can.