Well folks, if you're looking for a fast paced book, relatively seamless transitions and plenty of action without lots of smoochification... I recommend this book. It's a good story, technically correct and historically accurate (mostly). On the downside, it's a little formulaic and predictable, except where the women are concerned. Nathan Stone is a likable character, and I look forward to reading more in this series. Give this book a try.

I love Zane Grey westerns. I have read other fine writers of the genre, but needed to find some modern writers of westerns to complement those that I read many years ago and are no longer with us. Ralph Compton (recently deceased)impresses me with his story-telling and character development. I have read some criticism of his historical accuracy or lack of it, but this is "fiction" and I refuse to allow those few inaccuracies to ruin a very entertaining book. Yes, the western formula is present in this book, but it works; and he embellishes the story with some different twists in the fate of his female characters. Nathan Stone was strong enough to warrant the trilogy and I plan to read those as well. Ralph Compton left us too soon as he was hot on the trail of giving us many years of adventure in the Old West.

My name is James Drury. I played television's The Virginian for nine years, and I hope that gives me some kind of credit when reviewing a western novel.

For those of you who haven't read Ralph Compton, you are in for a real nice book. It's fast moving and vivid. If you don't mind a few trespasses outside the realm of accuracy on Old West outfits (boots, gun leather, etc.), you will really like Ralph Compton. I am only sorry he passed away. I'm sure he was headed for a very long and promising career if he had continued.

Incidentally, for those of you who read a lot of westerns, Kirby Jonas is a young author whose books I'm recording on audio cassette. I must say he is probably the best author of Western novels I have ever read, and if you like Ralph Compton, or even if you don't, give Kirby's books a try. I guarantee you won't be sorry.

Uneventful fluff about british horse racing. No mystery, no murder, a good way to kill time as well as brain cells.

High Stakes was an excellent novel. I chose to read it because it focuses on horses and because I have read other books by this author. This novel was a page-turner because there were several twists in the plot. It was easy to relate to the main character and feel what he was feeling, as if his life was yours. The book had certain sections that the reader really had to think about, because the plot was complicated at times. Also, the author has a way of not describing something until the last possible moment. For example, the characters discussed a critically important plan, and the reader themselves did not know what it was until the plan was executed. At times this made the novel some-what confusing, but did not result in the book being misunderstood. In the future I would read another book by this author.

High Stakes marks the beginning of Dick Francis' (or Mrs. Dick Francis, depending upon who actually writes his books) writing for the American market. Tho' not the bone-cruncher the earlier books were, his toy maker is one of the more likable protagonists and the beginning zings!

I highly appreciate Dr.Allison's efforts to understand MPD, and agree with him that MPD is not the same as DID, but if he would read more on the subject, like Magic Castle, Satan's High Priest, etc, he might not be so quick to decide against the cause of so much of the disorder. I also do not know how he can conclude that he has not seen Witchcraft as the root of any of his patients, since he thinks he has them 'cured' in a matter of weeks, or a year or so at the most. It took us about eight years before getting to the root of the problem. Yet, he does report the bizzare events he faced with bravery, and I applaud him for standing his ground against the medical doctrines per se. He has opened the gate for many of us to share our own paranormal lives with the public without being locked up for lunacy. Thanks, Doc.

You don't have to be interested in learning about Multiple Personality Disorder to find this book fascinating. When writing a book about a person who was a multiple, I realized MPD offers a unique window into the human mind (including the soul). It offers an exploded view of the mind where one can look in and around the pieces before reassembly. Each multiple provides startling revelations of how the mind works and what it means to be a person.

Allison uses his case studies to examine individual fragments in just this way. He has what many doctors lack--humility. He shares his mistakes as well as his successes, and because he's willing to face ridicule by his colleagues, he ventures into territory others avoid. His stories offer glints of the human soul, insights into the workings of a spiritual realm that do not neatly fit in any of our scientific of theological boxes and hints of our connection to our Creator. Particularly interesting is his discovery of an entity common to all mulptiples. (Allison chooses the word "entity" over "personality" in this case.) He calls this entity the Internal Self Helper and shows how this aspect of the person has remarkable knowledge of all the events in the person's life as well as what it will take to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. The Internal Self Helper often displays knowledge of a connection with God that goes beyond this present life. One gets the feeling that in this unique personality or entity we are seeing a glimpse of that part of the person we call the soul or perhaps the spirit, broken off from the rest of the being so that the counselor can speak to it directly.

Some facets of personality shimmer with the light of heaven while others are opaque with the darkness of hell. In his book, Allison candidly describes reintigration of the personalities as well as exorcism of opportunistic spirits that have worked their way between the cracks.

The one drawback I saw to the book was the final chapter, which was appended fifteen years after first publication of the book. Unlike all of the other chapters which are short on conclusions and ample with examples, the last chapter is all conclusions without any examples to support his sweeping claims. He steps off his own pyschological turf to offer a number of enormous theological assertions, but offers no support from his own case studies or from religious writings. For example, he states that reincarnation is taught in the Old and New Testaments and acknowledges that the church disputes this, but then he doesn't say where or how the Bible supports the idea of reincarnation. There is, of course, the possiblity that John the Baptist was the reincarnation of the prophet Elijah predicted in the Old Testament, but he doesn't even mention this. And, so, I think he opens himself up to a lot of legitimate criticism in this final chapter because sweeping revolutions in religious understanding require careful argument, not mere assertions. Thus, four stars, instead of five.

Dr.Allison brings years of clinical experience forward in a paradigm challenging view of Multiple Personality Disorder (he differentiates this from DID).Bringing spirituality into the arena of the psyche he finds answers that help guide his patients to wholeness, and challenge the world view of his peers. A must read for psychotherapists and those interested in Multiple Personality Disorder.

In the early 1980s the Cold War was on its last legs, but at the time it did not quite feel that way. Especially in Europe, many people were afraid that the new more sophisticated nuclear missiles would sooner or later destroy humanity. At the same time there were growing worries about the environment, as trees and whole forests seemed to be dying from the exposure to pollution. That is the background of Grass' novel "The Rat", which is his own version of the Apocalypse.

The construction of the novel is very intricate, poems and prose interweave several plots. The rat of the title is a pet which the narrator keeps, and which suddenly starts telling him about the end of humanity in a nuclear war; rats survive and found a new civilisation. The narrator does not want to accept this and starts telling stories to prove to the rat that he still exists. There definitely is a feeling of endgame about the novel, as Grass summons characters from earlier novels (such as Oskar from "The Tin Drum"), all the women he has loved (the five of them corss the Baltic Sea in a boat) and his native Danzig-Gdansk as if to say goodbye to them all. In another subplot, characters from well-known fairytales try to start a kind of revolution to save the German forests.

Much of this is very poignant, some of it full of brilliant black humour, yet somehow I get the impression that maybe Grass tried to do too much here. The novel is far from being a page turner. As both the rat and the narrator insist on their points of view, some annoying repetitions occur. - To me it seemed quite dated, too. Even Grass himself seems to be less worried about the end of the world today, as his recent novels are more concerned with the injustices of German unification. That said, "The Rat" is representative of its time - and it is a daring vision which few writers of Grass' standing have attempted. Maybe it will prove a case of greatness which was not recognized in its own time.

_The Rat_ is my favorite novel by Gunter Grass. It is miserly and potent, with very little wasted space or filler. It is an almost continuous stream-of-conscience monologue; it is the nonstop ranting and raving of an angst-ridden person in the midst of a spiritual crisis, venting his frustration and confusion. Overall, this technique proves to be a very successful literary device. It reads almost like nonfiction philosophy, and because Grass does not get bogged down with an absurd plot and characterization, this novel provides an ideal vehicle for his undiluted spiritual-philosophical beliefs. Keep in mind, however, that there is very little in the way of action, charaterization, and concrete plot events in this novel. If you are looking for a more traditional novel, you may want to look elsewhere. Nevertheless, I still believe this is Grass' best work because it is personal and revealing with regards to his deepest sources of philosophical angst and spiritual misgivings. I recommend this book to anyone who really wants to know what is going on in the mind of Gunter Grass.

One of the best books I have read in a long time. I agree that this book is very dense with symbolism, but I think that this is a virtue, not a fault. Grass orchestrates an amazing chaos through out the book, tying together themes as diverse as the death of fairy-tales, the destruction of the environment, human attitudes toward rats, and a host of other ideas, and somehow turns them into something remarkable. For all its different plot lines, I felt a unity running through this book that few authors could have achieved.

This book is certainly not for everyone, and I would not advise reading it until after you have read "The Tin Drum" and "The Flounder" both by Grass, but for me this book was a remarkable reading experience.

Lewis Carroll sends Alice on a second set of adventures in some territory that is beyond our world. This time she crosses a mirror and enters a game of chess. She will eventually become a queen but she will in all possible ways express her deep desire to rebel against a world that is seen as having too many limitations and frustrating rules. She will in a way rebel against the game of chess itself when she comes to the end of it and pulls the tablecloth from under all the pawns and pieces to have peace and quiet, to free herself of absolute slavery. But what is she the slave of ? Of rules, the rules of the game, the rules of society, the rules of education. Of words and their silly ambiguities that enable them to mean both one sense and its reverse, that enable them to lead to absurd statements and declarations that completely block her in blind alleys and impasses. But at the same time, her return to the normal world that transforms those adventures into a dream, is a rejection of such adventures and of such rebellion as being absurd and purely fantasmatic, dreamlike. There is in this book a rather sad lesson that comes out of this ending : children can dream adventures, can dream perfect freedom, but reason brings them back to the comfortable world of everyday life and submission. And there is no other way possible. This book is pessimistic about a possible evolution from one generation to the next thanks to the retension of childish, childlike dreams, forgetting that the world can only change and progress thanks to the fuel those dreams represent in our social engine.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

"Through The Looking Glass" is, perhaps, not QUITE as good as "Alice's Adventures In Wonderland", but it's close enough to still rate five stars. Not, properly, a sequel to the first book, there is no indication at any point in it that the Alice (clearly the same individual, slightly older) from this book ever had the adventures in the first one; there is no reference to her previous adventures, even when she once again meets Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Obviously, the two books are intended as parallel adventures, not subsequent ones.

The most memorable bits from this book are doubtlessly the poem, "Jabberwocky", as well as chapter six, "Humpty Dumpty". But all of the book is marvellous, and not to be missed by anyone who enjoys a magical romp through silliness and playful use of the English language.

(This review refers to the unabridged "Dover Thrift Edition".)

Carrol was a profound and wonderful writer, and Through the Looking Glass... is definate proof of this. Though there isn't much evidence that he was a pedophile, you shouldn't grade his works simply on who he might or might not have been. Through the Looking Glass... is one of the greatest works of literature in the english language, and will continue to be despite the author's supposed problems.

Interest in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea has increased since President Bush included the nation with Iran and Iraq as an "Axis of Evil" state. Further interest was generated in October of 2002, when the North Korean government confirmed that it possesses a nuclear weapons program. I, along with many Americans, are now seeking information about this mysterious hermit nation. I chose Kongdan Oh's "North Korea: Through the Looking Glass" because it seemed to be a non-technical overview of North Korean society, economics, and politics. The blurbs on the back cover described the book as providing "genuine insight" gleaned from "painstaking research." Unfortunately, the book did not live up to its promise.

One finds oneself wishing that the authors would share with the reader all of the interesting data that they discovered in researching the book. Instead, all we get are general statements about the corruption and ineptitude of the North Korean government. This could have been a much better book if the authors had elected to paint a more vivid picture by including more detail. Here's an example: on page 66 the authors make the following statement: "North Korean government and party officials also engage in many illicit activities such as counterfeiting, production of illicit drugs, and smuggling (especially conducted by the DPRK's foreign diplomatic corps). " There is no elaboration on this provocative declaration. The citation for this statement is an article by David Kaplan et al. in US News & World Report, dated February 15, 1999. I looked up the article and found it to be fascinating. The US News piece states that North Korean counterfeit "$100 bills ... are cranked out on a $10 million intaglio press similar to those employed by the US Bureau of Engraving and Printing, officials say. North Korean defectors claim the notes come from a high-security plant in Pyongyang. Kim Jeong Min, a former top North Korean intelligence official, told US News that he had been ordered to find paper used to print US currency but couldn't. 'Instead. I obtained many $1 notes and bleached the ink out of them,' he says." You can see how the authors water down the source material to a bland presentation of generalities. It as if the authors went to the same writer's school as the North Korean propagandists, from whom they endlessly and boringly quote.

I was also annoyed by the repeated jabs at the North Korean government. Readers should be allowed to come to their own conclusions about the foolishness of the North Korean dictator, rather than be pelted with parenthetical inserts about the ineptitude of the leadership. An example: "The most pressing economic problem is the food shortage. The apparent (but wrong) solution to the problem is to try to achieve economic self-sufficiency... " This style gets irritating very quickly. Sometimes, the writing becomes downright stupid. An example from chapter 8: "North Korea is half a world away in the part of the globe less familiar to Americans -- Asia rather than Europe."

I was interested in examining the 29 photographs that occupy the center of the book. Unfortunately, they all appear to be government-approved. For instance, there are several sterile photos of peoples' backs as they stand still looking at statues exalting communism. Of course, the lifelessness of theses photos probably does reflect the Zeitgeist of this unfortunate country. But I wish the photographs could have provided more insight into the difficulty of daily life in North Korea.

Despite the flaws in the book, the subject is of such intrinsic interest that I kept reading. My persistence was rewarded at the end of the book, where the authors discuss policy options in dealing with North Korea. This section was well-reasoned and shows that the authors do indeed know their topic. Too bad the preceding 200 pages were not equally as good.

A great introductory insight into one of the most strange and mysterious countries on earth. The authors provide valuable examples and a good understanding as to how the bizarre North Korean government operates, and how this regime minipulates the minds of its people. The most interesting parts of the book are the insights provided by the many defectors from the North, and the stories they tell.

In my opinion, the book lacked any real insight into North Koreas military capability, it kind of leaves the reader wondering how strong this country really is. Though the author does mention that North Korea has a "military first" policy, and most of its money and resources goes into the military, we don't know what types of capabilities they really have, what types of technology they possess, and what countries are supplying them with what technological products. This lack of information may be due to lack of the authors access to this information.

After reading this book, I still don't know how the economy of this country functions, this is definetly a country that requires serious help from the outside. This book is a great read, and a very good introduction to understanding this backward nation.

This book is really loaded and provides the reader with much insight behind this closed borders of this isolated country. North Korea is one of the last countries in the world that doesn't have diplomatic relations with the U.S. The book also provides historical data that is helpful as there isn't much known about this country who happens to be the largest weapons exporter in the region. Another book that I highly recommend as it discusses North Koreas secret, but aggressive nuclear weapons program supported by China is the thriller THE CONSULTANT by Alec Donzi.

While a nice, non-intimidating introduction to the field with an emphasis on physical insight and "back of the envelope" reasoning, it is NOT suitable as a graduate level text for statistical & thermal physics, contrary to what is stated on the back cover. I would say that if one were to use this and Reif as a combo as an undergraduate, one would get a good picture of the field from both a classic and a well done modern presentation.

For graduate studies, by all means look elsewhere. McQuarrie, Kubo, Huang (if need be), heck, digging up the Dover reprints by Hill and Wannier wouldn't be such a bad idea, really.

This is by far and away the best book on introductory thermal physics I've read. It is written in plain and clear English and the development of concepts and the required mathematical framework is language-based rather than formula-driven.

The first three chapters give a beautifully concise overview of the basic concepts of first-year thermodynamics, with a very clear introduction of the concept of entropy. The highlight of the book is perhaps the development of the chemical potential and the Helmholtz and Gibbs free energies.

Baierlein gives a great introduction to thermal physics. He emphasizes the how and why and writes in english, i.e. this book is not a collection of formulas.

He does a very good job of explaning statistical mechanics, providing insiteful discussions of the Maxwell-Boltzman, Einstein-Bose, Fermi, and canonical distributions. Great description of the chemical potential. Easy to understand discussion of entropy and multiplicity and also of the partial and exact differentials used in thermal physics.

IMHO, it is the best introduction to the topic available. A similar book, but not as well written is "Thermal Physics" by Kittel and Kroemer. Of course if you are looking for a reference on Statistical Mechanics, chock full of mathematics, try Reif, Reichl, or Landau.

I have been so disappointed by the book -the only printing material available today for ISC DHCP. Yes. This book will teach you something, especially some theoretical stuff for DHCP. However, when you finally site down to set up your first DHCP server for your LAN, even a very simple LAN, you would find that you have learned very little from this book. DHCP should not be that hard, but the authors made it complicated and confusing by putting too much theories and too few hands-on examples in this book.

For one of the most important parts in this filed, DHCP+DDNS, the authors did not provide readers any useful syntax and examples in the very short Chapter 22. The APENDIX B "ISC DHCP Server Configuration File Reference" is also poorly written. It is not organized alphabetically, and the authors asked you to refer to the index for what you want. When I try to search the word 'ddns-domain-name', I couldn't find it in the Index. In addition, on the first page of APENDIX B, the authors gave you two broken links to make you frustrated further. APPENDIX A is "Microsoft DHCP Server Examples." Where are the examples for UNIX? We all know that configuring DHCP on NT is a piece of cake.

My general impression is that the two authors know too much theories, but seriously lack hands-on experience on TCP/IP including DHCP. The other possibility is that they don't know how to make complicated knowledge and skills simple in order to make readers understand them easily. In other words, they are not good teachers and instructors. Good teachers make complicated things simple, and poor teachers make simple things complicated.

This book should have taught you everything for setting up DHCP, but it failed. You will have to spend lots of time to search the ISC DHCP archive, and ask people the basic questions about some syntaxes. The worse thing is that this is the only DHCP book you can get on the market today. The only good thing for me was that I bought the book from an eBay auction, and did not pay the full price... . The value of this poorly written book is definitely not worth the high price.

I have been so disappointed by the book -the only printing material available today for ISC DHCP. Yes. This book will teach you something, especially some theoretical stuff for DHCP. However, when you finally site down to set up your first DHCP server for your LAN, even a very simple LAN, you would find that you have learned very little from this book. DHCP should not be that hard, but the authors made it complicated and confusing by putting too much theories and too few hands-on examples in this book.

For one of the most important parts in this filed, DHCP+DDNS, the authors did not provide readers any useful syntax and examples in the very short Chapter 22. The APENDIX B "ISC DHCP Server Configuration File Reference" is also poorly written. It is not organized alphabetically, and the authors asked you to refer to the index for what you want. When I try to search the word 'ddns-domain-name', I couldn't find it in the Index. In addition, on the first page of APENDIX B, the authors gave you two broken links to make you frustrated further. APPENDIX A is "Microsoft DHCP Server Examples." Where are the examples for UNIX? We all know that configuring DHCP on NT is a piece of cake.

My general impression is that the two authors know too much theories, but seriously lack hands-on experience on TCP/IP including DHCP. The other possibility is that they don't know how to make complicated knowledge and skills simple in order to make readers understand them easily. In other words, they are not good teachers and instructors. Good teachers make complicated things simple, and poor teachers make simple things complicated.

This book should have taught you everything for setting up DHCP, but it failed. You will have to spend lots of time to search the ISC DHCP archive, and ask people the basic questions about some syntaxes. The worse thing is that this is the only DHCP book you can get on the market today. The only good thing for me was that I bought the book from an eBay auction, and did not pay the full price, $55. The value of this poorly written book is definitely not worth the high price.

This book will bring you up to speed very quickly if you're a beginner. If you already know about DHCP, this book makes a good reference manual. A lot of the content is repeated from one chapter to another, keeping you from having to flip back and forth to other chapters

...it's also difficult to find your way around.

This book basically consists of a long list of "antiques", (including all possible kinds of 50's colletibles) sorted by type. The good thing about this book is, that the prices quoted are actual realized sales, i.e. there are no estimates and guestimates in this book.

The bad thing is, that whatever you're looking for will almost certainly not be in this book. And if it is, you will not be able to find it, unless you already know the book/the market very well.

Why? Well, there is, of course, an infinite amount of "stuff" out there. Even Kovel's 900 pages cannot cover it all. That would be less important, if the book a) limited its scope a bit e.g covering only "real" antiques OR "real" collectibles and b) showed us how to determine the value of something not in the book(e.g. if "your" chair is made out of a different kind of wood from the type described in the book, how does that influence the price?).

Instead, the problem (of looking up a certain kind of antique) actually is aggravated by the fact that the organization of items is not very clear. Example: if you're looking for the price of a Meissen Porcelaine Figurine, you may have to look under all three categories (Meissen, Porcelaine and Figurines). That of course being subject to you knowing that there is a separate "Meissen" category and not looking up "porcelaine" only. Forget the index, it rarely helps.

In my opinion, this book can be useful only for people that are willing to put a lot of time into the subject, learning the organization of the book by heart and visiting a lot of auctions / flea markets in order to develop a feeling for the factors influencing prices. A beginning collector is likely to be frustrated by this book.

This, like lots of antique price lists, can make anyone a little nuts to use. As has been noted by others, 80% of the time what you want will not be in the book and then if it is, chances are that your items condition will be different that the one the book lists a price for. That said, these books can be helpful as a reference and give you kind of a "good idea" what different types of items go for. This book, like most general antique price lists is a little weak in the area of antique tools (one of my areas of interst) but this should not be much of a problem for most. Kovels' book is as good as any of the general interest price lists out there and worth having around.

This is the first book I had seen by the Kovels and I am totally impressed!It is just as it says-a listing of items and their estimated values!It does contain some helpful hints and small black and white photos through out (of some items).If you are looking for a photo guide-this is NOT it(I wasn't).Otherwise it is VERY informative.It also contains some background information about the companies (ie-Tiffany's,etc).Overall a great book and great authors!

Contrary to the typical rantings of Neo-cons and neo-liberals, this book is not a book by and for Socialists (or, more accurately, anti-capitalists of any sort). This book does not have any kind of critique of capitalism. Only the sort of ideologues who lust after Latin American dictatorships like Pinochet's, which meant 'small government' (no social welfare type apparatus) and a strong state (death squads, political executions, smashing of dissent), will find this book threatening.

The book does have a lot of useful information on how the WTO runs and how it is focussed on the needs of corporations, most of which reside in the most developed capitalist countries, and which seek a set of global rules that allows them greater freedom of movement to invest and exploit (wow, I already hear the neo-cons whining because I used the 'E' word.) It also shows that the balance between global capital and the nation state has shifted, though this does not have the dire anti-democratic consequences claimed herein. That would be the liberal assumption that the nation state 'represents the people' and that that is a good thing.

At the same time as some people claim that the WTO is killing the nation state, this book makes it clear that the WTO is a body run by and through nation states. Corporations cannot directly intervene, but must have their concerns addressed through nation state mediators.

The book also does a good job of exposing the total lack of accountability of the WTO, as well as one of its unique features: unlike previous UN organizations, the WTO has disciplinary powers which it can use to enforce its rulings, something no 'humanitarian' part of the UN ever had.

The abscence of any kind of class analysis hinders this book theoretically and means that some possibly interesting questions do not get answered.

This book is better read alongside some other texts, which, even with their failings, fill in some of blanks here, such as Negri and Hardt's Empire.

Overall, a pretty useful and utilitarian overview of the WTO.

Just what are all those protesters so upset about, anyway? This book will tell you. It's a quick, accurate, well-composed book examining the effects of the WTO on developing countries' poverty, health care, natural resources, and human rights.

This review doesn't need to be lengthy: Look, there are lots of books on the WTO. If you want the accurate summary to understand this issue simply, this is it.

This book did a wonderful job of thoroughly covering dispute cases and pointing out structural flaws in the WTO. The writing style was easy to understand and appealed to a broad audience.