It's a simple yet common story...

I love my Vintage Truck, and hated seeing it slowly dying of the common cancer we call RUST. I've combed libraries, bookstores, retail and wholesale outlets...and found ONE book that I really found worth owning. I give this review as a tribute to the author as gratitude for the common-sense info and product information he researched into his book. He must have a love for some old auto like I do.

The book is a medium to small sized paper-back. I would rate it's content-to-size as richly packed with information for such a modest and portable size. The explanations, concepts, "How-to's", and retailer contact information were very well balanced. Additionally, products and application techniques were showcased, that were EXCELLENT, and rarely discussed elsewhere.

I have a RUST-FREE truck now. And every auto I purchase will be spared the ugly and slow cancer we call rust. It's a small investment, for such a rewarding read.

Interesting and attention holding. Sister Agnes keeps searching for what she really wants in life. The book had twists and turns and an ending that was a real surprise.

I picked this book up after traveling along the Chief Joseph highway in Utah. It is a well written depiction of the events and travesties of the Nez Perce. It also somewhat lets the reader see that although a great leader, Joseph was not perfect and that there are some who do not believe he was a great a leader as he was depicted in history. Overall, a well researched book which gives the reader an inside view to the thoughts and actions of Chief Joseph and other leaders of the Northwest Native American tribes.

This is a good edition of the bible, perhaps the best edition of the New American Bible for Catholics. It begins appropriately with a guide to reading the scriptures and the text of the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation from Vatican II. The introductions and notes are scholarly and helpful. Maps and illustrations are nice, esp. the illustration of ancient Hebrew cosmology. The Bible Dictionary and the Doctrinal/Bible index are helpful for looking up passages which are important sources of Catholic Doctrine. It comes in an attractive cloth cover. A great buy for the price! I would recommend this over the Catholic Study Bible, NAB. I would give it 5 stars, except that I find some problems with the NAB translation (excessive use of inclusive language and a mundane reading of some of passages). Catholics interested in this Bible should also use the New Jerusalem Bible, a nice alternative translation which is less literal and more literary. The notes and book introductions in the New Jerusalem Bible are even better than those of the NAB. Also, the New Oxford Annotated Bible, 1977 Revised Standard Version, is recommended since it contains all of the books accepted by the Eastern Churches as well as the Western Church and it is a beautiful and literal translation of the Scriptures.

I indexed this book. It's an excellent collection of long essays by different authors on different aspects of Salem, including its architectural history, maritime tradition and, of course, the witchcraft trials. In addition to being easy to read and informative, it's also a handsome edition, with full color photographs on nearly every page. Well worth adding to your history collection. I receive no profit from sales of this book, and recommend it only because it is worth reading.

This is a real oddball book. Rebholz reports collecting his "Salsa" from international journalists. As a result, the more than 800 "suggestions" for better living range from salty to the serious. All in all, it's a real fun read and can be an important source of upbeat inspiration for the young at heart who are tired of living in the daily rut. In addition, "Salsa" would make a neat gift for dull lovers who may only need a bit of encouragement to become more pleasing.

I found this book had just about everything I needed to get started using Publisher! It was in a very easy to use and follow format!

The authors cover nearly all the practical ground of the title from antennas to orbitology to video. The book mainly targets BS/MSEE engineers and is an excellent match at a general professional level. Highly experienced pros or academics may refer to it for breadth. The chapter problem sets make it a reasonable fourth year textbook. The index and lists of acronyms and symbols are better than average. Typography and graphics are outstanding.

To do this in only 550 pages (12 chapters) the authors perform a delicate trade-off between logging technical issues and delving into them. The reviewer judges it overall a wise set of trades. No real attempt is made to go into many subtopics past a thorough discussion of basic motives, mathematical relationships and key results, limitations and conventional use. "Middle ground" development and derivation may be missing or merely suggested in some cases. There is essentially no discussion of military vice commercial satcom except noting the hard-limiting transponder. Yet the reader gets a solid feel for the "lay of the land" in both theory and practice. In overall content, the book leans toward RF and physics, and away from data transmission and networking. This sets it apart from books on VSAT. Reference lists go back to classics (e.g. Nyquist in 1928) and forward to about 1991. It is an excellent complement to specialized satellite communication texts on the engineer's reference bookshelf.

Some criticisms can be argued. Topic balance is not always satisfying. For one example, two packed chapters (117 pages) present orbits to an admirable "user level" of detail. Yet only one chapter (40 pages) presents the critical topic of multiple access, and there is only one paragraph on DAMA. In another example, the digital modulations PSK, QPSK and 8-PSK are overviewed but not MSK; yet good references made to Lindsey, Proakis, et. al. Their coverage and references on forward error correction (FEC) coding is even thinner relative to other equally important topics, and in the reviewer's opinion this is one of the book's few shortfall areas holding it down to four stars. This second edition is dated 1993, and a third edition correcting some (few) errors, gaps and shortages (e.g. FEC) should be very welcome by the engineering community. It could be a five star text without rewriting most of it.

[Reviewer's Notes: I own and use this book. I am a professional telecommunication system engineer. I have no relation to the editor, author or publisher. Stars are opinionated and awarded parsimoniously. Five stars is top flight quality and relevance; such a book may not always exist in a given subject. Four is a standout among existing works. Three is solid quality and can be very useful. Two disappoint somewhat but there may be reasons to keep it. One star covers everything from finding many significant flaws to a disaster; I'll spend my time with more stars.]

Contrary to one of the editorial reviews this book contains a bibliography, although not an extensive one. The author is translating for a general readership, not for other experts. Therefore his harmonizing of the various sources is designed to be readable - which it is. He is concentrating on the sources that represent his speciality - Arabic and Coptic; therefore, some familar stories are omitted as are most gnostic sources.

The stories included are histories of Joseph, Mary and substantial infancy materials. Also included are a number of early nativity hymns and excerpts of the infancy material in the Quran.

The weakness in the book is solely in the Introduction where the author displays a consistent post-Christian, reformation bias, especially with regards to the creation of the New Testament canon. He does acknowledge the diversity of the canon in Syriac and Coptic versions but never allows that acknowledgment to mitigate his "Catholic power-grap" mentality.

While I prefer Maire Herbert's Irish Biblical Apocrypha for fun stories, this volume is far more representative and readable. It provides excellent background for Medieval mystery plays and some poetry without expecting background in Biblical studies.

A Mexican Christmas story, this book is lacking a few things. First, I had to go searching to find out which culture it was representing. Second, there was no background about the Mexican celebration of Christmas. In a way this was a good thing because it did not make the characters any different from anyone else; they were not a "minority", but simply people. However, I feel that American schoolchildren would have a hard time understanding what was happening in the story.

Familial bonds and magic of Christmas were a focus however. These are things that many people in the world can relate to. Because nothing was explicitly taught, it did not make the culture a novelty. But it did not ignore it either. I wish more "multicultural" books were done this way. The impact is effective, but no hard-hitting.

Why 4 stars?:
Secret Stars is a nice story about family and the magic of Christmas that takes place within the Mexican culture. However, the culture is not the dominant aspect of the book, which I really appreciated. However, I didn't find the book to be incredibly interesting or useful in the classroom. It does have a place and could be helpful with Mexican immigrant children.