Not since Loory's now, sadly, out of print book, "Block Island Days-Bohemian Nights" has an author captured the feel of sailing tactics in such a poetic, yet professional way.

Mr. Loory structures his work as a tournament of ideas pitting "Boat Speed" against "Right is Might". The beauty of this methodology is that it soon becomes apparent that the combination of both "Speed" and Tactics will enable the Club sailor to take home trophy's and have bragging rights at the

Yacht Club Bar.

This is a great reference book for any racing enthusiast. It is not really the type of book that you can sit down and read cover to cover, but rather allows the reader to consult a number of topics in the order that they choose. It is an excellent source for the fundamentals of advanced racing (if that makes any sense). Reads very easily, but there is a lot of stuff in here to absorb. I highly recommend this, it should be in every racer's home library.

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I think my review title says it all. I tried to come up with a way of summarizing the material in this 350 page book, and couldn't. There was too much!

Jobson and Whidden, two world class sailors, packed each chapter full of information--well may not the first chapter--that was short. But the rest of them were long, detailed and packed to the gills with important information.

If you race and don't read this book, you will probably not do as well as someone who has read the book. It is that simple.

This book is for aspiring racers who want to improve their standings in the fabulous sport of sailboat racing. Are you ready to race and win? Are you ready to learn?

What I liked best about the book was its organization. Look at the index below and you will get a hint of what I mean. But you will have to buy the book or thumb through it to really understand what I mean.

I liked the emphasis on teamwork, communication, and leadership, which I find under-emphasized in other books I've read.

Great information is provided on the winds in different parts of the country. Read the section on your sailing area and any place you race.

This is not a one night read of a book. Plan on spending lots of time with this book reading it, and re-reading, and applying it to improve your on the race course performance.

Index:

1.What is a Tactician

2.Creating a Game Plan

3.Starting

4.Upwind Tactics

5.Downwind Tactics

6.Faster Finishes

7. Steering

8.Tactical Instruments

9.Putting it All Together

---------------------------------

Smooth Sailing,

Bart Senior

"Cracking the GRE" is a decent value for the money, but I'd recommend spending at least equal time with ETS' excellent (and free) Powerprep software...The Princeton Review will provide you with concrete strategies for "cracking" each type of question (eliminating answer choices, making reasonable guesses, plugging in numbers, etc.) that ETS will not give you in Powerprep, and you'll find what this book lacks (math and practice exercises) in Powerprep.

The verbal section was short but useful, especially the "GRE Hit Parade" list of vocabulary words that pop up on the test again and again. In fact, the information in the verbal section seemed to correlate directly with questions on the practice tests provided by ETS on the Powerprep software. I've always been strong on verbal sections of standardized tests, so I figured that this section wouldn't teach me much. Wrong. I increased my verbal score on practice tests from 640 to 770 after using "Cracking the GRE" as my sole prep source.

The math section was a different story. While there was a good basic review of basic math operations and geometry, I found it didn't prepare me for the stickier questions on the ETS practice tests. My practice test math score increased a measly 10 points after using the book, and there were two questions that I couldn't figure out how to do even after consulting the book again while looking at the questions. The math review and practice questions on Powerprep are FAR superior and better approximate the real test.

This edition also contains a useful guide to the analytical writing section with some practical tips for organizing your writing and using time, as well as a list of sample topics. If you are not a confident writer, this section is excellent preparation, and if you are one, it's good review.

The online tools (lessons, exercises, and 4 practice tests) that come with the book were one of the main reasons I chose it instead of Kaplan. The lessons and exercises are sort of useful, but very limited. They are also really slow to load for modem users. As far as the practice tests go, after comparing them with Powerprep's practice tests I'm a little wary of using them. The Powerprep questions just seemed so much harder and more...well, devious...than the ones PR could come up with.

Another shortcoming is that there are relatively few practice exercises available. For both verbal and math, the book provides 20 each of easy, medium and hard questions. For those of us who learn by doing, this is just not enough. Again, Powerprep has an advantage, providing three practice sets for each type of question (antonyms, sentence completion, quantitative comparison, etc.) you'll encounter on the GRE.

Overall, I recommend "Cracking the GRE" as a worthwhile supplement to what ETS provides.

I've been studying for the GRE over the past few weeks. I've read just about every book out there that prepares students for taking the exam. The Princeton Review book provides lots of details about how to answer every question type. Buyers get an added bonus in that they are given four full-length practice exams through review.com. I recommend getting this book as well as the Kaplan version. Stay away from all of the rest of the guides.

This was an excellent study aid. I used many study guides for the GRE prior to using this one and found this to be the most helpful. If you work well with having planned strategies this is the book for you!! The pages are filled with helpful strategies to pick the best fit answer on the test. Great way to learn the process of elimination to find the best answers. It really improved my scores!!!

This book details more information on the factions in the Exalted game. Solars, Lunars, Dragon-Blooded, and Abyssals, there is probably a little bit of everything for everyone. There are several paragraphs covering each of the factions and a small section of additional charms to try out. But would you even want to bother with the snippets here merely to whet your appetite until the full supplements for the factions are released?

Also, since this is supposed to be a Storytellers Companion, I was pretty surprised not to find a hefty section on running games and campaigns. Dock 1 star there. The nifty storyteller's screen packaged with the book is useful and seems to work well for the few game sessions I ran. In the introduction, the book also mentions a full-color map that was supposed to be included in the book, but don't bother looking for it.

In summary: Nice but not essential, and left out a lot of the cooler stuff for the supplements. I would recommend buying the full supplement for your favourite faction(s) instead.

As a storyteller wishes to improve himself, he finds that, most often than not, companions are pretty useful. This particular companion, however, instead of optional rules or player characteristics, it gives a more complete background, absolutely necessary when running a chronicle for a game as Exalted. This sort of history and backgrounds is what will separate your chronicle from a common AD&D RPG and a more complete, more human world.
This book avoids the storyteller from inventing everything on the city and gives hundreds of guidelines for possible chronicles, besides, exalted is extremely hard to run precisely because of historical background, so, this book is quite useful.

I was highly skeptical of Exalted when I first heard about it, but I jumped on the bandwagon and bought it for kicks. The roleplaying community has been needing this game for a long time. An exciting, intruiging fantasy world, cool, chic powers, and a tried-and-true White Wolf emphasis on ROLEplaying, not dice. Instead of the cliched "Dungeons and Dragons"/"Lord of the Rings" fantasy RPG style, this game draws a lot of themes, moods, and powers from anime and Greek epics. If you're a fan of White Wolf's games, this is definitely for you. If you like fantasy RPGs, this is definitely for you. If you are looking for something fun and different, this is for you. Peace.

This game has presented the best mechanics on time travel RPG's to date in my opinion. There is no comparison to any other game or system, period. If you want to play with time travel this is the game for you.

The world however that the game is set in was... a bit boring for me. I didn't like the political groups that the characters had to join, the history was unimpressive and seemed half baked, and I was left with the thought "ok, I can travel through time... now what?" I needed a little bit more to understand the motivations of these beings. More of an enemy to oppose.

This book has some great ideas to use in a time travel game. For example the idea of the "yet" - things that you learn you must do in the future to avoid paradox. However, if you use all the ideas the game becomes too complex and difficult to play.

This is an excellent book, one of the best RPG's that I've ever seen. I picked this book up at GenCon 1999 and I can't wait to pick up Narscissit (a companion game book) this year. What makes this book so interesting is that it doesn't limit the players or the GM, if you've seen it it happened, if you don't remember the event, it is in your YET, (the required future) otherwise it happened. The book goes on the assumption that the universe just "is" there aren't any rules to control what spanners do, there are rules of conduct as in any society, but no "can'ts"

As a former police reserve officer, I spent years requesting CSI with little understanding of just what they do. This book goes well beyond lifting fingerprints and other routine tasks that police officers are typically limited to. I now have a better awareness of the capabilities of CSI and conciderations about how to protect a scene and how CSI can be used to investigate certain crimes. I also have a greater appreciation for CSI personnel and the difficult job they have. I liked the book and believe it would be helpful to anyone in law enforcement.

This is a very good introductory Criminal Justice text. It is easy to see that the authors targeted the general introductory cj students and those interested in exploring the field of crime scene investigation. Basic terms and proceedures are presented in clear everyday science based applications. This text uses understandable charts, graphs and photos to enhance crime scene applications. This text is clearly not for those who are working at the graduate level, but it clearly meets the needs of the student who is surveing forensic opportunties. Good job

I found this book to be a solid introduction into the varied and complex field of CSI. It presented a balance between basic and advanced techniques. The authors state this book was written for students considering CSI and those currently in the field and I agree. It provided a refresher in some areas and exposed me to new concepts in others. I also liked the community-policing feel of this text as it relates to addressing the needs of victims. The book is easy to follow and contains many photographs. I recommend it to anyone considering a job in CSI or to enhance their skills. I also read the first edition. This one seems to be much improved.

This book suffers from a dull prose style and a mere listing of the agonies of the Adams family, without much insight. But if you want the facts about America's most distinguished dysfunctional family, here they are.

(...) An insightful and interesting study of four generations of complex and often contradictory personalities. I especially appreciated the author's manner of hinting at future developments and bating the reader to read on and on...in my case, well into the night. His analysis of the Adams' strengths and weaknesses is what sets this book apart so I am perplexed that anyone would describe it as dull and a mere listing of events. But don't take my word for it -- if you have only a few moments to browse through it, check the index for the passage dealing with the death of the tragic first generation daughter, Nabby. The writing is poignant and wrenching. Anything but routine.

I read this book in about one week. I found it very well written with logical conclusions and theories based on an extensive primary and secondary source material study, complex yet readable and extremely well researched. This is a book that anyone interested in American history and the complexities of the first 4 generations of the Adams family will appreciate. A masterful undertaking by the author...never boring and highly informative.

Topic is fairly intriguing, especially Burnham's expert knowledge on issues of self-interest, but writing itself is overall clunky and dull. You find yourself wishing for more spark, warmth and humor in place of the cold, arid, repetitive fact-spewing.

While the economics profession has its head in the clouds, Professor Burnham's focus is on the ground floor (or perhaps even the basement). His paradigm for understanding the underlying source of our economic preferences is highly illuminating. Interestingly, it supplants the widely-held view in the field that tastes should be taken as exogenously determined. Rather than falling from the sky, however, Dr. Burnham describes the genetic underpinnings of our preferences, and the tug-of-war that often results. I highly encourage others to read this provocative text, and to follow Burnham as he continues to articulate his profound insights in other volumes. Stay tuned. There's more to learn from this teacher and synthesizer of various strands of scientific thought.

115 years ago one of the two most important works in evolutionary biology was written, yet it remained unknown for 30 years, as biologists groped along in the dark. Economists are today doing the same thing, while the Mendel of their field lays unread. This book needs to be read by all who find the current state of economics to be unrealistic in its assumptions about human behavior. We have been groping in the dark too long. Don't let 30 years go by, when the truth is available to us today.

I'm glad that I own this book but potential buyers should be aware that this is a history of Avedon's work, not a stunning presentation of his photographs. The book contains hundreds of images but most of them are small in size. The images are arranged chronologically with some associated text. The book also contains two essays about Avedon and a detailed bibliography listing press accounts about him. There is also a helpful list of the various books that Avedon has published.

I would recommend his other titles -- "In the American West" for example -- if you want to see the full-size, stunning photographs for which Avedon is famous.

The book is OK. Nevertheless beware: there is more text than photographs. And they are tiny in most cases. He who prefers to read about photographs rather than to see them will be pleased. I am little disappointed.

This is a wonderful collection. I have found myself going back to it again and again. I'm not sure Adam Gopnik was such a good choice, although he is a lively writer; but the other New Yorker art critic, Peter Schejhal (sp?) would certainly have been better, as entertaining as Gopnik but more focused and memorable. But this is just a small complaint; overall, I love this book and hope that every library in the world someday owns a copy.

As noted in the previous reviews, Mr. Foy has written an acerbic and biting work, detailing his aristocratic perspectives of the Irish Music Session. Fully half of this book is devoted to deriding any musician other than one playing a fiddle or, as unlikely as it seems, a banjo. After reading the book, I had hoped that perhaps the author was writing in a tongue-in-cheek style, poking fun at the sometimes too spontaneous free-for-all that some traditional Irish Sessions become. Unfortunately, after attending several sessions led by the author, it becomes apparent that he is deadly earnest in his musical snobbery. In the opinion of this reviewer, the elitist attitude conveyed in the book is more suited to formal chamber music, not the participatory tradition of the Irish Session.

Some excerpts neatly illustrate the style of writing...

"Each player who starts a tune does so with a different feel and speed, and the end product is a fickle mishmash that makes listeners wonder why this seemingly antagonistic group bothered to come together in the first place."

"Accompaniment: The playing of chords on one instrument to go along with the playing of a melody on another. A recent antitrust suit in the California Supreme Court charged a cartel of guitar and bouzouki manufacturers with promoting the notion that accompaniment is appropriate for Irish Traditional music. The case is still pending."

"Bodhran (pronounced 'bow-ron'): Ireland's contribution to the world of percussion. A large, single-headed hand drum that no one wants to hear but everyone wants to play."

"The fact that you are holding a musical instrument in your hands does not automatically entitle you to play it."

In short, attend a good session, listen, learn, and forget about wasting your money on this collection of snide commentary.

This should be required reading for any gaijin interested in Irish music sessions. Even if you're not interested in playing sessions, but just want to know what Irish music is all about, check this one out.

This cheerfully vicious little book tells you all you need to know about the Irish music session, be you a listener or a performer. It's a quick, fun read, and makes a nice gift (as long as the recipient won't recognize him or herself in its pages).

Rockoff clearly loves the genre and his behind-the-scenes tales on such slasher faves as "Nighmare" and "Maniac" are very interesting...I just wanted more...The book barely cracks 200 pages and leaves out a host of deserving slashers (Where's Madman?The Final Terror? Hide and Go Shriek? Rockoff mentions The Burning as having spawned the most future stars of any slasher, but the Final Terror had Joe Pantoliano, Darryl Hannah, the incomparable Adrian Zmed and Rachel Ward, not too shabby!) The book is a good appetizer, but it will leave you wanting more (especially for that price...ouch!)

Upon first appearance I have to admit, I felt somewhat cheated. The book was smaller than I'd pictured it would be for a hardbound, there wasn't a dust jacket, and it looked pretty lean considering the audacity of its title. I was hopeful upon ordering but disappointed in "presentation," otherwise I would have given this book a 5-Star Rating. The reason I give this book the other four stars is because this author knows exactly what he is talking about! The thought and attention to detail are absolutely amazing: an absolutely delightful and juicy read! I'm a longtime fan of slasher films, merely for their entertainment value, of course, :0}, and have contributed to this particular genre personally on more than one occasion. Hardcore fans of the 'slasher genre' should, and will, crave this book as though it were 'the law' of the subject! Trust me, trust me, trust me, having experienced this genre firsthand, both inside and out, you will not find a better reference for this unique list of sub genre horror films! This book is the first truthful, forthright, and unbiased look at a mini-genre that was despised publicly but loved inwardly. And, despite the supposedly 'lurid' premise of its subject matter, it never strays from being 'politically correct'. A+

This thoroughly entertaining book is a must for any fan of the horror/slasher genre. Author, Adam Rockoff, has compiled an impressive list of slasher films, both the well known and the little seen. Rockoff offers detailed information for the majority of the films he has listed in the book, including plot synopsis, behind the scenes anecdotes, quotes and stories from those involved in making the movies. The author is not afraid to offer his own opinions (both good and bad) of each film as well. The book is filled with lots of photographs as well, although curiously, none are color photos.There is even a list of films that go by multiple titles at the back of the book. This book has inspired me to search out many of the films reviewed within which I haven't yet seen. If I have a quibble (and it is a small one) it would be that in Mr. Rockoff's breakdown of each film's plot, he reveals (and quite logically so) the film's ending, possibly spoiling some of the tension for you if you haven't yet seen the film. Also of note: at 214 pages, some may feel that the book's [$$] pricetag is a bit steep. That aside, this is a great reference guide for anyone who appreciates a little blood and guts with their popcorn.