In roughly 150 pages, author Jose Orlandis presents to readers a neatly compacted history of the Catholic Church up to the early years of the collapse of the Communist bloc. Published originally in Spanish as "Historia breve del Cristianismo" ('Brief History of Christianity'), this English translation by one Michael Adams is quite brief as well, even cursory to some. But, as Orlandis points out in his Preface to this work, he made the book short "in order to make it accessible to a wide readership, to people who might not be inclined to read a more elaborate book." This being said, the author does manage to effectively profile the main events and theological developments which molded the Church to its present form. "A Short History of the Catholic Church" is orthodox in its outlook and does not neglect to mention unfavorable events and characters in Church history. Orlandis dedicates a curiously laudatory paragraph in the final chapter to Opus Dei, the lay organization which is considered controversial in some circles but enjoys at the same time the support of conservative Catholics including Pope John Paul II himself. In a more conventional vein, the author supplemented his text with a fine chronological table divided by centuries, but unfortunately did not insert a bibliography.

I purchased several of these books to use as small gifts, and while they do make nice gifts, there are a few errors. At least two of the knots in the book give the wrong direction for the final loop, which can make what should be a symetrical knot (Windsor) into a fairly lopsided knot. The book does, however, give nine otherwise good, creative ways to tie a necktie.

Have you ever wondered how many ways there are to tie ties? This book gives you more than you need to know, 9 to be exact. All knots are nicely illustrated with brief description on their characteristics. This book covers beyond classic Windsors and Four-in-Hand. I gave 4 stars, because it didn't cover the basic techniques, such as how to put a dimple in the middle. Here is a hint for you. To achieve sharper looking knot, buy a shirt with 1/2" bigger neck size. This will help reduce tie-space, thus giving you smaller looking knot.

Overall I thought the book was very straight foreward. This book takes you beyond the foolish 4;windsor, 1/2 windsor, 4- in -hand, and the bow. I've always seen excellantly tied ties in fashion advertisements and wondered how they did it. The fact is they are not using the knots mentioned above. The classic knot described in the book is very sharp semi-semetrical with a small vortex at the bottom. There was even two ways to tie the bow; one easier than the other. The only complaint is the layout of the diagrams although clear some were scatered all over the page making it difficult to follow along. Money well spent for the man who is always looking for new ways to look sharp!

I just finished the 9-week program, which the authors wisely emphasize is just meant to get you started. I complied with the diet about 80 percent of the time, and the workouts about the same. I have gained a small but noticeable amount of muscle definition in my shoulders and arms, but I lost only about six or seven pounds ... roughly half of what I had expected based on the testimonials in the book. I'm pulling my belt in one more notch, but still wearing the same size pants, so I didn't lose the four or five inches their test subjects claim to have.

The diet is easy enough to follow, and includes enough recipes to not be too monotonous, especially if you use the principles to find additional meals. But at this rate, it will take me a year to reach my goal weight, and I know I won't follow it that long unless I get some significant success much sooner than that.

This book makes more sense than most. The macro-nutrients are not radically unbalanced in their meals. And the meals are one of the easiest to follow since they basically borrowed the Mediterranean diet (one of the best out there, IMO), and made some slight adjustments to it, which I think were improvements. And I think they make a strong case against the low-fat diet. Nor are the authors taken in with all of the supplemental junk that health magazines try to push over on you. These authors are more savvy than most. And they explain and make a very good case at why weight-lifting has a much better metabolic effect than aerobics alone. Over half of the book covers its exercise program, and it is filled with hundreds of pictures, but this wasn't as much of an interest for me, but it might be for others. I found the book to have many interesting facts and case studies, many I haven't read about before. But the debate over what are the optimum protein levels is far from over. There are some respected nutritionists and scientists out there that think athletes need more protein than the USDA recommends; one the author quotes from is Professor Peter Lemon who is well respected. But there are also other well respected scientists still in the same camp that the USDA protein levels are all you need, and this includes for athletes and body-builders too. E.g., take Professor Ellington Darden. The latter used to be on the high protein bandwagon for ten years of his life until he obtained his P.H.D., and when he did one of his tests on himself, he noticed anytime he went over whatever the USDA recommended for his weight, he was urinating the excess down the toilet. But at least the amounts of protein the author is recommending isn't overly excessive.

The book was under-funded, as most health books are. Despite its title, not once was a single testosterone test done for any of the participants. They mentioned that testosterone tests are very difficult to get good readings on, and they would have had to take all the participants in as boarders to be able to do that. Nevertheless, they still make a good case of it by relying heavily on studies which showed that those who ate more fat, had more testosterone. Some of the other studies were of those taking testosterone supplements.

Not one single participant was thin to test their weight muscle gain program out on. So if you're one of these guys, you'll need to be the first guinea pig. All of the pictures I seen were of heavyweights. They started with 30 volunteers, and ended up with 16. And of that 16 remaining, I only counted 6 before and after pictures of the participants. Even when you look at the final 6 that are left that they choose to be their prime examples of what their plan could do for you; you'll notice the typical before pictures of the person just standing their looking sullen without his shirt on, and making no effort to suck in his gut. With the after pictures, they put on their happy face and half of them have their shirts on for the picture! And only one set of pictures even comes close to having the same before and after pose. Several have their arms up, and it's really amazing what sucking in your gut can do. Despite all of my criticism, you can still see a change, and I think the authors give us accurate measurements. But even when they are giving you personal statistics about the final 6 participants that are left, you'll notice the information is scant. Some left in their before and after bench press numbers; some choose to leave in their before and after chin-ups; nothing is consistent. They choose to pick what they want you to see, and disregard the rest. Now let's see ALL of the pictures and statistics from everyone including the final 10 participants!

I'm 43 and was 265 lbs. I have never lost any weight in my life. I followed the plan in this book fairly closely and did what they said I would do-I lost 20 lbs in 9 weeks. I ended up loosing 30 lbs in 14 weeks, And about 3 inches in my waist. I've have stopped loosing for the past 4 weeks or so and am now looking for "the next step".

I used a Bowflex (major investment) for the lifting and am quite pleased with it as well. Lifting takes about an hour 3 times a week, and the diet is easy to follow. The whole process was really easy, and I really recommend it!

My review has very little to do with the author, but more to do with the material offered. I am studying to become a counselor and this book has helped me to understand the current principles introduced by Freud and others and why they DO NOT HELP the counselee.

The book clearly offers both sides of the picture so that the reader can be informed of current psychiatry and biblical counseling. I believe God's word is sufficient to help ANYONE in ANY form of health. C2C helps us to understand how to apply it and the role that the Holy Spirit plays in counseling.

A must read for pastors and Christian Counselors alike!

This book uniquely removes the counselor from the counseling. It centers it's context on what the scriptures say, as opposed to what the counselor thinks.

With the nouthetic approach, the counselor has the unique ability to remain apart from the solution, not a part of the solution. This dynamic is critical to effective counseling.

I believe that in the counseling arena there is to much human intervention, opening the door to a high subjective point perstective. Although there is often good intention in the human perspective, we must know that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Bible centered counseling is the state of the arc in counseling. When you get your anwser, it's god that is giving it not man.

I would applaud mr. Adams for a work well done.

Competent to Counsel by Dr. Jay Adams is worthy of reading, but is equally worthy of implementation. This book is not a theory of counseling so much as it is a call for believers to begin the biblical counseling of one another.

Dr. Adams shows a positive approach to what the Bible teaches on counseling. Most relationship problems arrive at our doorstep because sin entered the world ages ago. Many personal problems are a result of God's need to impose trials on His children to help them grow, or, to rebuke sin in His children's lives. This book addresses how to caringly work through such spiritual issues, one believer to another. In many instances, this is accomplished through simple encouragement-an art form and a responsibility often overlooked by the church today.

While modern "psychotherapy" is often grounded in doctrines of amoral values of humanism, Dr. Adams is careful not to disparage all psychology, the study of the human mind and human behavior. Actual illness needs to be referred to the appropriate medical doctor. But issues of sinful behavior patterns by professing Christians need to be handled by the loving care of fellow believers working through a biblical model of problem identification, repentance (where needed), and change.

Many have called this book groundbreaking. What has happened with Nouthetic Counseling since this book was first introduced is nothing short of revolutionary in the Christian church. The numbers of Christians who have been restored into a healthy relationship with God and the church as a result of this book are simply uncountable.

Read this book. Put the principles into action.

This will clearly be a major book within political science and political economy. Unfortunately, the book's prominence will be due more to the preeminence of the lead author, Adam Przeworski, than to the scholarly contribution of the work. The bulk of the book is a series of statistical analyses that probe the effects of regime type (democracy or dictatorship) on a series of dependent variables. While the book is competent and this is an interesting topic, it is also a topic which has been studied in depth in the existing literature. In fact, dozens of journal articles over the last five years address the questions that drive this book, and many of those articles make use of better data and are methodologically more sophisticated than "Democracy and Development." If this book has a genuine professional contribution to make, it will probably consist in drawing more attention to other people's better, more innovative work on the same subjects.

Too many conjectures and too many theories have been addressed concerning the relationship between polities and material well-being in the world. But they have been raised without a proper test of them, without empirics. This book completely cleans all kinds of intellectual garbages, clarifies the existing arguments, and above all provides a series of the sohpisticated tests. Adam Przeworski and his comrades did a marvelous job.

I bought this book to read with my wife, as we are both interested in Jungian approaches to understanding how the mind works. While we have finished only one laborious chapter to date, it is clearly not the engaging, wide-ranging book that I had thought from the product literature. In fact every other sentence is a quote from Freud, Jung or other Jungians, making it altogether pedantic and a chore to read. While all scholarship rests on the shoulders of those who have gone before, this author appears to have very little to add to his sources.

While I had thought that Jungians were a bit more open to new ideas and thinking for themselves, this is not true for this author. It is very disturbing, actually, since while the delineation of the unconscious is an important discovery, a vigorous and productive science forges ahead to use the insights of earlier practitioners to find new and deeper insights, even facts. The need to continually refer to the founder of the field some 75 years before speaks more of a cult than of a science that will at any point in the future actually alleviate the human condition. And the tenacious fixation on using pseudo-scientific terms such as "analysis" is eloquent testimony to the unfulfilled hopes of this field, not to mention its envy of the "hard" sciences.

OK, that said, the focus of the book is entirely appropriate- how do we think about the world? Why do we value the internal world of fantasies, superstitions, and spiritual beliefs over the outside real world, and how are they different? Myths and archetypes are a recorded examples of the fantasies that are shared by more than one person, often by whole cultures, like the good king, the bad witch, the magical wizard, and the gifted healer, not to mention god and the soul. The author unfortunately believes that the only proper myth is an old one, so any clinical fantasy presented to him needs to be cross-checked in the database of Greek or similarly old archetypes (ARAS catalogue of the Jungian institute). But are not archetypes being created all the time and just as valid if created today as thousands of years ago? What to say to the inner city kid who dreams of being a star of the NBA, with all the fame and fortune that entails? That he is dreaming of an Odysseus fantasy of great power and success? What possible use is that except to say the he is in a long tradition of being human? It may be a supportive or emapathic thing to say, when coming from a respected friend, but hardly a therapeutic breakthrough.

For a long time, I've read thought leaders like James Hillman complaining that Jungians have lost the mythic dimension that was so important in Jung's own writing, resorting instead to an almost Freudian reductionism. This book, more than any other, helped me understand exactly why myth is important both in therapy and in the world around us.

"The Mythological Unconscious" is written for the professional, but it's certainly accessible by the layman. It's very readable, filled with pointed -- and poignant -- examples and, of course, myth and metaphor. I almost wish Dr. Adams had called this book something like "Myth and the Soul." Maybe then it would find the wide, popular audience it deserves.

I would have to agree with the previous reviewers in the sense that this does not give an in-depth view of the entire Babylon 5 series. Granted, this book is a great overview of the series (up to the end of Babylon 5's fourth season), but I suggest looking up other Babylon 5 materials if you need more information.

Andy Lane's book is the ultimate in Babylon 5 guides and the "A-Z" index is also a required reading to backup the former. What this book stands for ? It is a non original book (using the above two ones as reference) but provides the reader with enough backstory and technicalities to tie-up all the above into the Babylon 5 station itself. It can fascinate the reader with tech specs and photos of all known ships, guns, etc. plus all other procedures of living in Babylon 5 station. Also a nice insert are the VIP criminal records, the known space grid, a.o. As a publication is perfect making it the last required book for those dedicated Babylon 5 fans. If only it was a novel idea...

Very detailed, with a lot of information. Of course it could be larger, with much more information on other ships, aliens, etc., but it accomplishes everything it promises.

I bought this book with the intention of learning more in depth use of actionscript with all of its wonders...Instead, I was bombarded with too much game design stuff. The table of contents was misleading and the focus of the book was useless for true web design.

There are many books out there for actionscript, I suggest any of the others.

Friends of Ed has been publishing great books on Macromedia Flash consistently in the recent months, and this one actually has some fundamental coverage like concept design and project structure then moved on to advance topics such as XML integration, Generator, etc. Basically a little bit of everything starting from the intermediate level Flash developers can use. My only complaints is the black and white printing, and no CD-Roms, but all the source files can be download from Friends of Ed's web site. Keep up the good work FOE!

This book is, along with Moock's Actionscript book for O'Reilly, the first really solid book covering programming in Flash 5. That includes good stuff on planning projects, code structuring, OOP, design, and XML much more in depth than any other Flash book I've seen. It is definately advanced, perhaps not to the point of some of the hardcore OOP coders on the Flash lists, but quite complex and more than enough to challenge most readers, which is good.

The projects are good and varied, and it seems like Friends of Ed has at last gotten someone to insure that coding styles are reasonably consistant throughout the book--other of their Flash books have been essentially collections of inconsistant and often incompatible articles. The usual suspects do show up (spaceship games and rotating 3D cubes), but presented with a level of detail and thoroughness totally absent in other books (short tutorial in matrix math anyone?)

The great chapters on Sound and XML are almost worth the price alone, but the standout chapter is called "Creativity in Practice" and covers invaluable stuff like: working in teams, interaction planning, prototyping, information architecture, even some usability. In other words, the stuff that professional designers do the 80% of the time they're not messing around with software. It's exciting to see these topics appear in what could have been just another coding book.

I won't dock it a star, but one qualm is that it doesn't come with a CD (again contrary to Kevin's review below). You have to download about 80Megs of files from the publishers site. Come on guys, if there's no CD at least knock a few bucks off the price. And even at high-speeds, that 80Meg download is kind of a pain.

Like most people who buy this book, I am a huge fan of the movie, "Casablanca". I purchased, "As Time Goes By" to it to bring back the emotions of the movie. As I began reading the book I almost stopped myself many times thinking I was cheating my cherished Casablanca memories. The story or my love for the original movie kept me reading. Mr. Walsh did a good job of creating an interesting past for Rick, however his future was pretty hooky. Some of the characters headed into unbelievable areas. Victor Laslo turned very dark and jeopardizes Ilsa's life for his obsession. Mr. Walsh cheapens his tale with tongue in cheek references to Humphrey Bogart's career and cause of death. All that said it was not really a bad book. I hope it is not made into a movie so that I will not be tempted to see it.

For someone who loves the film "Casablanca" as much as I do, I was prepared to really pick nits in this book. Believe it or not, it was pretty good, and kept my interest.

This takes up right after the end of the film. All of the major players end up taking part in the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, which then leads to the massacre and destruction of the town of Lidice. There are flashbacks to Rick's past in New York (which explains why he can't go home again), and some twists and turns in the plot to keep it interesting.

A good read, and "Casablanca" fans will have some fun spotting the references to the film. Enjoy!

If you are an fan of CASABLANCA as I am you will find AS TIME GOES BY interesting. The author creates a story line that give Ilsa and Rick and past and a future. The problem is that we all remember Ilsa walking off into the foggy night with Victor. Somewhere deep in each persons heart you think of the person that you really loved but whose love was unattainable. Therein lies the beauty of the movie. We all want to hope that someday she and Rick maybe got together or that they spent the rest of their lives with other people but still dreaming of Paris.

Although I found the book an interesting read, it just didn't work. You really can't add to someone else's story.