This theme has been played-out and such poor writing does nothing to help.

I liked this one. I hated to see Karl get killed off in the last one, but hey, that's what happens. As the saying goes, you live by the sword you die by the sword. Or in this case the sword and the gun. At any rate, I thought this "he's really not dead 'schtick'" was well-played. I would only have been disappointed if he had not really been dead. I wanted to see more of Karl, but at the same time knew that wasn't possible - he was _dead_. It would have been very easy to bring him back again as the writer can basically do whatever he wants, he can play God. But he didn't. He played it like the real world in spite of the fact that his world is filled with magical beings, etc. Karl Cullinane, for all he was extraordinary, was as mortal as anyone. I liked this one.

I had a hard time forcing myself through this book. I gave it to my 10 year old son, who is a Francophile and a voracious reader, and he couldn't get through it. Just kind of dry for a biography of a person who was probably pretty interesting.

Lafayette, young brash and bored, takes as his life motto the "Why Not?" on his family crest and answers the call to adventure by leaving the ennui of European court life and taking up arms in the American cause. His personal life, including wife and kids left at home, his adoration of Washington, and his instrumental role in the success of the faltering colonial revolution are all adequately explained for young readers, but there is an uncharacteristic flatness to the telling. Fritz' many other biographies certainly qualify her to tackle this enigmatic subject, but the intricacies of political intrigue seem to oscure the storyline. Lafayette's life seems to have been about boredom, about opposing constituted authority and about swashbuckling adventure, no matter who pays the price. A tough subject to cook down for readers 10-14, by any standard. It's a great read for an overview of Lafayette's life, but lacking in the fire and passion of Fritz's other books.

No I didn't buy it - a friend of mine did. Good job, too, because I would have hated to have wasted good money on this nonsense. On the other hand, I was invited to read it.

For those who truly believe astrology (I am not one of them, as you might notice), The movement of the moon, sun, planets and other celestial bodies, will somehow alter the course of your lives. I'm being a little facetious, of course, but they certainly believe that there are predictable moments of opportunity, predictable moments of threat, predictable moments of good fortune. What serious astrologers never claim is that they can offer a day-by-day account of how you should lead your lives. They only claim to know, in vague terms, whether you are threatened or whether you are in a period of better fortune.

Hmmm....

But my argument here is not with 'serious' astrologers (I'll save that for another occasion). This review is of 'Your Personal Horoscope 2002', which claims to be able to foretell your destiny month-by-month. So tell me, why is it that my brother and I, both of whom share the same star sign, have had two TOTALLY different years during 2001? A serious astrologer would not generalize. A serious astrologer would make no claims to be able to give you a day-by-day account of your life. Polansky does!

If you really believe that the miniscule gravitational effects of planets that are light years away can affect your lives, so be it. On the other hand, if you believe that someone can foretell your life, month-by-month, based on these astrological movements, then you're being duped for sure.

It's bunkum for the masses. Be warned, and stay away. Take up reading tealeaves, at least it benefits the tea growers!

I hope people interested in this book won't be turned off by Mr. Hamer's negative review. Most people with any curiousity about astrology will know several factors go into charting an accurate horoscope and no one single volume written for mass consumption could presume to do that sort of intricate and detailed work. A volume like this one is meant as broad overview of the cosmic trends and how they affect each sign and is to be read as such.

Personally, I like the format of this book and recommend it.

My husband had a personal interest in this case and has looked

for this book for years. He was thrilled to find it on Amazon.

This book gives you a good reason to bolt the door at night. The aurther may have spent to much time developing a few charters but all in all, I'd say the wait pays off.

Do *not* buy this book. It is not well edited and contains numerous typos in the HTML and CSS syntax. It is now 2001 and this book was published in 1997, so it's very out of date. The browser compatibility charts only go up to Netscape 4 and Internet Explorer 4. There is no coverage of Opera at all. (The age of the book is not the author's fault, but if you are looking for a good reference, try Hakon Wium Lie and Bert Bos' book, or Eric Meyer's.)

This book represents one of the poorest editing jobs I've ever seen. The number of typos, images that don't match content, and outright errors make this book a pain to read. While there is useful info throughout, the poor editing quality is distracting.

This book is not worth it. There are a host of typos and other mistakes in it. Worse, at times there are mistakes in the authors' understanding of HTML rules (which makes me worry about their grasp of CSS).

The book also claims to be supported by a web site with "online tutorials about CSS, HTML, and up-to-the-minute information about these Web technologies." The site, however, has only one page (containing unrelated information about browsers) with one link -- to itself. I emailed the author to ask and was told he was behind and hasn't finished any of it yet. That was months ago.

This book does have some marginal value in that it lists things like common fonts available across several platforms, and it touches on advanced design issues. However, you will be far better off purchasing one of the other guides to CSS. Don't waste your money on this one.

I purchased this book in the hope that I would obtain a clearer understanding of Cardinal Ratzinger in terms of his role and significance during the last twenty years. However I have to say that while there is lots of information in this book along with stories and anecdotes, it fails to deliver in terms of a substantive analysis of the church since vatican II and where the church will be as we move further into this the 21st century. At the conclusion of the book Allen hinges his critical description of the Cardinal in terms of the next conclave including a list of reasons why Ratzinger will not be Pope. If that is not enough he then goes further to sujest that in the event that he is wrong and Ratzinger does become Pope all of the difficulties he would envisage with such a papacy. The issues which he attampts to examine are far to complex in nature to be benchmarked of nothing other than his own futuristic and prophetic beliefs. Sorry to be so negetive.

Given the scathing reviews Allen's book has recieved by vehement critics, one would get the impression that he has nothing at all positive to say about Ratzinger. On the contrary, Allen believes Ratzinger "is not the vengeful, power-obsessed old man who lurks like a bogyman in the imaginations of the Catholic left". With regard to Ratzinger's thought, Allen finds that his "arguments are more than ex post facto rationalizations for exercises of authority" and speaks of "a deep, logical consistency to [his] vision". Indeed, Allen is so impressed with Ratzinger that he exclaims "in the unlikely event I ever had access to Ratzinger as a personal confesser, I would not hesitate to open my heart to him, so convinced I am of the clarity of his insight, his integrity, and his commitment to the priesthood" -- sentiments which might be denounced as treasonous or dismissed as insane by some on the Catholic left. (Picture a conservative saying the same claim about Hans Kung).

Allen's prevalently liberal audience will be reassured by the fact that his praises for Ratzinger as a person fail to carry over to Ratzinger's role as doctrinal prefect. One doesn't have to read far to note that on every issue from contraception to women's ordination to liberation theology he comes down squarely opposed, and remains just as steadfast in his convictions as the cardinal is in his.

There are many aspects about John Allen's book with which I disagree. Granted, we could expect something of a much different tone had this been written by one of Ratzinger's ardent supporters (Father Joseph Fessio or Cardinal Schonborn). Nevertheless, I believe we should respect Allen's account for what it is: an honest (and so far as I have noticed, unparalleled) attempt by a liberal Catholic to appreciate the person and thought of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. (No doubt others will disagree with my impression -- I say read the book and judge for yourself).

Finally, two poignant observations by John, L. Allen himself:

"Reaction to Ratzinger is often uncritical, driven more by emotion and instinct than sober reflection. Progressives do not read his books, they disregard his public statements, and they assume every position he takes is based on power politics. Conservatives revere most of what he says as holy writ, often spouting mindlessly without penetrating to the principle or value he seeks at stake. Neither response takes Ratzinger seriously.

* * *

The problem with political arguments in contemporary Catholicism is that too often the disagreeing parties talk past one another, having very little intellectual common ground upon which to base the discussion. . . . Neither is willing to spend the intellectual effort to understand the concerns that drive their thoughts, the arguments that have led them to the conclusions they hold, the alternatives they have considered and rejected."

This is certainly advice which any Catholic, regardless of his personal and ideological convictions, can take to heart and follow.

John Allen is to be commended for his biography of Cardinal Ratzinger. It is difficult to write objectively about living, controvertial figures and even more so in the case of powerful religious figures. Emotions can run high, even to the boiling point. Some readers might expect a "hatchet job" of the Prefect of the CDF by a writer for the "National Catholic Reporter", which is a prominently liberal newspaper, but only someone blinded by partisanship could consider this carefully researched and written book to be anything but thoughtful and even handed.

Allen read all of Ratzinger's works and many collateral books and conducted dozens of interviews in preparation for this study. He is at present NCR's resident editor in Rome. Allen is also an unusually well-read and well-informed practicing Catholic who genuinely tries to understand the points of view of his subjects. He raises difficult questions, as is his proper role, and, in my opinion, sometimes gives Ratzinger the benefit of the doubt when a sterner view would be justified but he provides a tremendous amount of valuable information and references so the reader can do his or her own research. This is the mark of a serious biographer and not a polemicist.

John Allen's "Cardinal Ratzinger" is an important and scholarly contribution to our understanding of this powerful figure in the present-day Catholic hierarchy. It deserves to be read.

This book is horrible. The review does not cover several areas that are tested later on. Besides having some of the basic concepts and equations in one place, I found it worthless. Furthermore, and I stress, these questions are NOT represetative of what is on the physics GRE. Many of these questions require a calculator or at the very least a trig table, neither or which are available to you when you are taking the test. The solutions often take too much time, but each question of the physics GRE should take about 2 minutes if you know what you're doing. The fact that there are explanations is helpful of course, but studying the ETS published tests is more beneficial because you are forced to figure out how to do the problem, and this is what you want to learn. Finally, this book is riddled with misprints, obvious and subtle, that often render a question and/or solution worthless or WRONG. Trust me, as soon as I finish applying to grad school, REA Publications will recieve my opinion of their "Best Preparation for the Phsyics GRE." There I made it through my review without making fun of mathematicians or engineers.

I think the best way to study for the Physics GRE is to review all the basic undergrad material(Ohanian (or Resnick), Marion, and Griffiths), and then practice a lot of problems. Since there are only two sources of Physics GRE questions (apparently our market is too small for Kaplan and Princeton Review), you pretty much have to buy this book. The other source is of course ETS's guide, which only has three exams. If you review all the material, then go through all the questions in this book, and finally go through ETS's guide, then you should ace the test. A lot of people complain that the questions in this book are too hard, but this is physics. If you can't handle hard questions, you should become an engineer. I am very serious about this!! Physics Grad school is not a joke, everyone that wants to go should know the basics, and if you can't do the questions in REA's book, you have no business applying.

Additionally, the questions cover all the vital areas of undergraduate physics. They ask very basic questions, and make you work out all the details. Then what you have to do is memorize the solutions! That is the key!!! The Physics GRE is a FAST-RECALL TEST, you don't have time to work out every detail and think about things. You have two minutes per question (roughly), so you have to know your stuff cold. This book gives you a listing of all the basic questions, and in solving them and memorizing the solutions (via flashcards, helps), it indirectly prepares you for the mission.

It was very useful for me to study from this book,
I studied from Resnick, Goldstein etc. and thanks to this books I realized that I was studying a boring subject,
the problems from this book are boring and not a big challenge
so I decided to move into math.
Now I am preparing for the GRE math test and I am happier than before.
Thanks to everybody, I found the light at the end of the tunnel,

I completely agree with Erickson's review. I have just finished two semesters using this book. I can't say enough bad things about it. If you get suckered into a course that uses this book I recommend that you immediately go out and buy/use the following:
1. Shaum's Italian Grammar
2. 501 Italian Verbs
3. Italian Verbs and Essentials of Grammar
4. English Grammar for Students of Italian

Anyone that gives this Oggi in Italia a good review must be on the payroll of the publisher/author.

This text is a soupy mixture of chunks of material. It follows the annoying trend in language books toward using words and grammatical concepts in exercises before they are introduced and explained. It also still has a number of typos even after several editions. More serious problems are the flat out grammatical usage errors that emerge in the later chapters. The whole subject of accent marks is poorly addressed nor are the verbs (-rre verbs), that contradict the statement that only three endings are possible, ever explained. I also object to the practise of frequently issuing new editions which are superficially modified to sell new books but do not correct or improve the text in any meaningful manner. Teachers please pass on using this textbook!

I have been using this book as a part of a series of beginning to intermediate level Italian. While the book does an adequate job in some areas, it leaves a lot to be desired. For example, the glossary doesn't contain many of the words used in the book. There are exercise which use words that have not been learned and which are not in the dictionary. The vocabulary in each chapter is somewhat arranged by topic, but is incomplete and confusing. The book is designed to follow as a sort of episodic course, but it is a horrible reference book, and concepts like verb tenses are separated by pages and sometimes over several chapters.

It is unfortunate that this seems to be the seminal textbook for Italian. It does the job, but surely there must be something better out there.

After three undergraduate courses in Physical Chemistry, I am finnally confronted with the graduate studies and my first (and I hope last) PChem course, and the professor had the bright idea of using this...for a textbook for the course. Is the most terrible, non-didactic, boring, non-informative, anti-chemistry book I have ever seen in my life (and I have seen a lot). If by any chance, you are confronted with the requirement of using this waste of paper and ink as your mandatory textbook, do yourself a favor, pick some other to understand the subject for real, or drop the class and find a better course somewhere else.

I've used Noggle ten out of the past twelve years in my junior level physical chemistry course. It is very comprehensive, takes a rigorous theoretical approach, and I think was a leader in using an operator based method for quantum mechanics, as well as chpaters on Stat Mech. Having said all that I am alarmed by the student reviews here. I teach at a small liberal arts college with 5-15 students enrolled in physical chemistry, and I offer a lot of contact time for problem solving assistance. I guess I am hoping that the students who wrote awful reviews took the course at a much larger institution. I noticed that Noggle went to some effort to make the 3rd edition "easier" than the first two editions, so that the problems were a bit less challenging, and in so doing there were quite a few errors in the 3rd edition, as the students pointed out; this is a prime example of how making something easier makes it harder. In any case, I guess I would not recommend the use of this textbook in a large physical chemistry course where students do not have direct access to a knowledgeable professor who is available to them in abundant amounts. But I am going to keep using it, and praising Noggle as I do so for his mathematical approach to the subject of physical chemistry.

This is the best physical chemistry book I have seen. I used it for my undergraduate class at the University of Delaware, where Noggle was my professor. It presents all of the basic thermo concepts (at an easier level than Sandler's text, definitely read Noggle concurrent with Sandler), statistical mechanics, diffusion, kinetics, and quantum mechanics. I still refer to this book regularly. It is an indispensable reference for a chemical engineer.

Harrington's text has been the backbone of a majority of undergraduate (and beginning graduate) Medieval Latin courses in the United States for several generations now, and it has, despite some serious deficiencies, worn relatively well. The passages were thoughtfully chosen, minimally edited and annotated, and presented with spare introductions providing just enough context to get on with the business of reading. In a field as wide as Medieval Latin, there are bound to be differences of opinion on what should be included, and if one is interested primarily in patristic or diplomatic Latin, it's probably a good idea to look elsewhere. But what was there was mostly adequate. The occasional textual problems were annoying, but fairly infrequent.

Pucci's new edition gives this flawed classic a fatal makeover. The new edition is endowed with a superior introduction and some good grammatical information; the selection of passages is changed from the first edition on more or less rational principles; introductions are enhanced; problematic grammatical constructions are given considerably more annotation. Being pleased with what I saw, and on a short time-budget, I ordered it for a class. Since I had already encountered many of the passages I intended to teach in the first edition, I didn't read them through before ordering the book for my students.

But when I began to teach the class, it became clear that the text itself (which is still, after all, the core of the enterprise) had become a hopeless mess -- such a mess, in fact, that only a textual scholar who doesn't need an introductory book will have enough experience and self-confidence to work past its bizarre readings. In the space of the six or eight passages we went over before the class simply gave up, we encountered many desperate phrases -- and in every instance the new edition had substituted gibberish for Harrington's comprehensible reading. These errors range from the whimsical placement of commas to absurd typographical errors (e.g., Duo instead of Deo). These occur at an alarming and debilitating rate -- not one every few pages, but sometimes several per paragraph. A complete errata-list, I suspect, would constitute a small volume of its own.

One wonders how a competent Medieval Latinist could have produced such a travesty. From the arbitrary and capricious look of the errors, I am led (with some incredulity) to suspect that a copy of Harrington's text was scanned into a computer, corrected without human supervision by a spell-check routine and a Latin wordlist, and then annotated and rushed out the door without ever being proofread by anyone who knew any Latin.

The University of Chicago compromises its credibility with such appalling work, and insults those who buy it in good faith, expecting to learn to read Medieval Latin. It should on no account be inflicted on undergraduates, who typically find the Latin itself challenging enough without having to battle through layers of modern textual corruption. Until they either prepare a corrected second edition (or a third), or simply discard it to return to the first, there are really only two paths available: Beeson's Medieval Latin Primer (not widely known, but still filled with solid passages), and Sidwell's Reading Medieval Latin (passages too short for my taste, but cleanly presented). Both have their drawbacks, and neither quite fills the gap left by the disappearance of Harrington's first edition, but there should be no mistake: Harrington's text is out of print.

Pucci's revision of Harrington's first edition is nothing short of maddening! I was looking forward to an expansion of the late Prof. Harrington's masterpiece only to find the excerpts of Milton, Scaliger, Dante, Pertrarch, and Castiglione removed! If one is interested in German Latin lyricists as well, do not buy this book! It was a grave disappointment!

This revision of Harrington's _Medieval Latin_ includes an excellent choice of texts, elegant illustrations, good introductions to individual selections and a useful grammatical introduction. Unfortunately, Pucci's notes to the Latin passages are often vague or misleading and are riddled with elementary errors. I found teaching from this book an exercise in frustration. Keith Sidwell's _Reading Medieval Latin_ remains the best choice both for college courses and for self-study.