I'm a Kubrick nut. If you're also a Kubrick nut, you will find NAPOLEON endlessly fascinating -- the literary equivalent of an ten-course meal at a five-star restaurant at the best restaurant you could ever possibly formulate in your imagination. Despite its cost, this publication does not disappoint. And what's fascinating to me is that -- despite NAPOLEON's comprehensiveness, from a "macro" standpoint -- a studious reader garners true, unbridled insight into the quotidian methodology of Kubrick's wholly astringent sensibility. This is thanks to the exhaustively collected (and beautifully reproduced) letters and memos (both from and to Stanley) and -- even more significantly -- the "hand-written annotations" that appear, throughout the material, in Kubrick's own hand. Particularly given the time-frame during which the bulk of this material was created -- in the immediate aftermath, for the most part, of 2001 -- it's fascinating to witness the means by which Stanley was leveraging his success (to ostensibly actuate his dream project), and the extent to which his reach occasionally (and ultimately) exceeded his grasp. Kubrick's insight into the workings of the Hollywood studio system is also on evidence; viz., there's a full draft of the NAPOLEON screenplay included, but the script's (somewhat schematic) side-stepping of the contemplated scope of the more ambitiously contemplated battlefield-centric production sequences (for example : Wellington appears, in the climactic clash, but has nary a line of dialogue) subtly suggests Kubrick's savvy insofar as making the project as financially palatable as possible to Hollywood's powers-that-be. As mentioned by other reviewers, the ancillary "costuming," "production design," and other magnificently-reproduced photographic volumes add immesurably to the experience. I spent a full weekend plumbing this thing, and it was a weekend well spent (and one I look forward to undertaking again, at some point in the future) (as with future viewings of Kubrick's masterpieces).