[Misfire]

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1) any recommendations for good lsat review books?

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Most retail LSAT books suck. You're going to get better books by taking a class. There are a couple reasons for this. First, the LSAC doesn't license real LSAT questions for any retail books (other than their own practice test books), but they DO license them for in-class materials. Second, most of the retail books are made by companies who also give classes (Princeton Review, Kaplan, Powerscore, etc.). To add value to their live classes, they leave certain information out of the books.

If you're not going to take a class, I'd get the most recent "Actual Official" books from LSAC. I'd also find a book that shows you how to identify all the game and question types and goes through a method for attacking each. "The LSAT Workout" from Princeton Review is pretty good for this, although some of it is geared more towards 165+ test takers (comparable to the difficulty of Kaplan 180, but the Workout organized and explained much better*). Avoid anything from GetPrepped, Arco, or Barrons. Also avoid the LSAT for Dummies and Cracking the LSAT.

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2) how much time should be devoted to preparing for the exam to get you near your best possible score?

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The LSAT is the most important admissions requirement, and admissions people could give a damn if your boss overworks you. Don't shortchange yourself on study time. If you're in school take the June LSAT so you can use summer break to study. (Quitting work is +EV here [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img])

Also, make sure it's quality time and you're not just pounding your head against the wall with practice tests. Part of your practice should be timed to get your pacing down. The other part should be slow and focused on understanding the test--not just the question/game you're on, but recognizing that question/game type elsewhere and knowing how it works. For instance, there are only like 7 types of games on the LSAT. Come up with a plan for diagramming each one so you don't have to get creative when you're actually taking the test.

*full disclosure - yes, I teach for Princeton Review.