Very nice book if you're curious about older cards. I liked getting a chance to see all the old cards together, to see some some cards I'd never seen before because they're too rare.

I've had this book for years. I took it off the shelf and brought it over to an RPG game at a friends house. Just so I could do some causal reading. Everyone wanted to see the book. Even people who don't play Magic the Gathering (MTG).

If you collect magic cards, or play - these books are an excellent resource. If you want to see what the older cards look like, they are in this book.

Volume 1 covers 4th Edition, Chronicles, Ice Age, Alliances, Arabian Nights, Antiquities, Legends, The Dark, Fallen Empires, and Homelands. There's also a section devoted to discontinued cards (leading off with, of course, Black Lotus and the original Mox cards). Cards that were removed but reintroduced before this book was published are not listed as discontinued. A page near the end of the book displays 6 of the most significant promotional cards that weren't just previews of upcoming releases.

Each set of cards covered is provided with an introduction, describing any new twists added for that set (including new types of decks that came about as a result), and any famous (or infamous) cards in that set. (A blowup of the artwork of Mirror Universe figures prominently for Legends, along with "The entire R&D team would have to be hit by a bus before we'd reprint Mana Drain.") The introductions are generally pretty entertaining and provide an informative overview (including descriptions of storylines that were added or updated by the release being described).

The individual cards for each set are listed in alphabetical order; they're shown at about 3/4 actual size. The versions of Magic that included those cards (at the time of printing) are specified, as well as any errata. The card lists' images are enough to hold the attention of even a casual collector, since the flavor text is legible and the artwork is printed well.

After covering the individual sets, the book presents "Misprints and Oddities", such as the Wyvern cards. (Errors in text are covered either with short errata for the individual cards, or in "Overlong errata" for text errors that were to big to include where the card was described.) The book concludes with a "Deckbuilders Indexes" section, as in the later volumes of the Magic encyclopedia.

Mark Eberra does an incredible job of opening up the readers'
imaginations to a whole other world of images and words in his poetry.
Every one of the five senses is overwhelmed as Mark challenges all of us to explore life with imagination, optimism, creativity,and faith. He teaches us that, no matter what we believe as a religion, motto, or creed, we can all benefit from trying our absolute best to look at life with the eyes of a child. Children are beautiful, loving, creative, and untouched by many of the world's sins and problems. They simply live differently and look at things differently.As adults, we all begin to have worries, doubts, and fears that can control alot of the things we do and how we are in relationships with those around us.Mark teaches us how we can start to let all of these things go so that we can live amazingly creative, exciting, contented lives. Mark's message is for everyone to learn to care for one another and love one another, and that we can achieve this by going back to the pure spirit and love that children have. We are all born with this incredible gift to inspire and create. And that is what we all need to realize. Mark has found lots of amazing ways to bring this out. He wants nothing more than to share the magic of children with all of his readers, so we may all lead better lives and inspire others to do the same.

i have read magicneering living, luaghing and loving life.and continue to read with my friends all the time,and it a wonderful book.Magiceerning has help me find the kid in me too. i find myseld saying to my own children, how i wish to be a kid again, and they luagh, but it true those were the best time. Mark Magic Eberra, you are doing a wonderful job. me and my frinds do smile more.
Blessing alway

magicneering living, laughing & loving life is the best book i've read. i'm living life again with the child in me. love the book.

I bought both books by these authors, but wouldn't recommend them both. Get this book if you aren't familiar with system programming, otherwise get the other book. They are good at going into the detail of the different concepts, their code samples are their class definitions, which seem to just be wrapper classes.

Maybe it is my programming style, IMHO, if you really want to write a portable, non-GUI application on Unix and Windows/NT, get "POSIX Programmer's Guide" by Donald Lewine and a POSIX envrionment (I use Mingw32[POSIX], Tk[GUI] & GNU C/C++ on Windows/XP). "Using C on the UNIX System" is also a useful text because it has very small, complete code samples. The POSIX environment will give you a platform independant layer that doesn't require C++.

This book is for programmers. It contains a ton of C++ code that I used to drop right into my program. To say that it is strictly for Unix to NT migration sells it way short. It contains building blocks for both OS's -- classes that wrap semapores, threads, processes, etc -- that from the outside look the same for both platforms. It then goes into how to use these building blocks in programs that communicate to programs running on other Unix or NT machines on the network.

When I first picked up this book I was skeptical that a topic such as this could be covered thoroughly enough to be useful. I was pleasantly surprised. Not only did I find the chapter text easy to read and to the point, but I found the source code easy to understand as well. I also found the source code sufficiently complete to use it as a basis for my own work. I hope there is going to be a second edition.

Those of us who were familiar with Joel Marcus' monograph, "The Way of The Lord", have long awaited the day he would write a commentary on the Gospel of Mark. It seems fitting that a strong commentary like this one be used to replace the astonishingly lame commentary by C.S. Mann.

The objective of the Anchor Bible commentary series is to make the Bible accessible to the modern reader by providing an exact translation, extended exposition and a reconstruction of the ancient setting. The targeted readership is the general reader with no formal training in biblical studies. Marcus' commentary does an outstanding job in reaching these objectives. His translation is fairly literal but is still readable for those of us whose first language is English. His crisp exposition also goes a long way in helping the general reader follow his arguments.

With regard to some specifics about his interprative decisions Marcus believes that the Second Gospel was written by someone named Mark but probably not the one associated with Peter as the Papian tradition would suggest. He also denies that the gospel was written for a general audience (aka Richard Bauckham) or as an evangelistic tool (aka Robert Gundry) but instead argues the pervasive opinion that Mark is addressing a particular 'Markan' community. Marcus also argues that this community probably resided in Syria. He suggests that the purpose of the Gospel was to address a community under persecution during the Jewish War and that Mark presents Jesus as a paradigm for suffering.

Undoubtedly this commentary is hefty and due serious consideration by students of the Gospel but nonetheless, I suspect, that many readers will find Marcus guilty of over-interpretation and straining to find subtle echoes of the OT where there probably is none to be found. For example, many readers may be bewildered by how Marcus can understand the author of the second Gospel to have felt on one hand the need to explain the OT Jewish custom of handwashing (7:3-4) and then on the other hand expect his readers to pick up on Jonah imagery in a storm on the lake.

Even though some may disagree with various issues of 'Introduction' and may see places where Marcus' interpretations seem strained and overworked, I suspect, it will be found useful to many studying the second Gospel.

If you are intending to study the Gospel of Mark definitly consider purchasing this book.

I would have given the book a three and three quarter stars if possible.

The Anchor Bible series continues to provide excellent material for the inquiring Christian. The almost word-for-word translations and discussions of the alternate usages of the Greek give an excellent understanding of the meaning of the words. The commentary ties into the translation notes well and goes on to provide a scholarly understanding of the text. While it is difficult to not use the arcane language of the Biblical scholar, these books at least make the effort to minimize it. The perfect resource for a small town Sunday School bible teacher like myself.

This is an excellent commentary, and surely all around the best now available on Mark in English, or perhaps any language. It is up-to-date, thoroughly conversant with the primary sources and secondary literature, and often original in its exegesis. It is also well written, so that while it must, of necessity, sometimes discuss involved topics, such as the meanings of Greek words, the author's meaning is always perfectly clear. Particularly important for scholars are the keen attention paid to the scriptural subtexts beneath Mark's surface and the consistent attempt to understand Mark within the context of the Jewish war. But this is a book for pastors as well as academics, full of intimations about the possibilities of contemporary meaning. Its length is just right -- the discussions are never too long to bore, nor too short to leave one unsatisfied. In sum, this is a worthy addition to the prestigious series to which it belongs, The Anchor Bible. Buy it.

After providing a brief autobiography Mark Allen, who does not seem the slightest bit arrogant, recounts the few days of and before Ironman Hawaii '87. The book clearly shows that Allen spends a lot of time sports-psychoanalyzing himself and his competitors (contrasting Dave Scott's seemingly machine like approach to racing.) The intimate description of IH '87 is interesting. The end of the book provides brief, but useful training advice incorporating heart rate monitoring.

Mark Allen, the greatest triathlete this world has ever seen, puts pen to paper and muses about the myriad aspects of his personal philosophies and motivating factors.

This book lets the reader enter the mind of a great warrior, while learning to appreciate just how mentally strong one must be to conquer an Ironman race.

Excellent book!

Since the date this book was written Mark Allen has progessed as an athlete to reach even greater glory and to conquer the Hawaiin Ironman, winning the race more than any other man in the 90's. In a sport where any of the top ten competitors are physically capable of winning on the day, I have no doubt that the mental strategies contained in this book have been the distinguishing characteristics between Mark and other athletes. The book deals with a brief description of Marks history in the sport, mainly with his 1987 season and the successes and dissapointments of that year culminating in the Hawaiin Ironman. Unlike the plethora of training material available today, this book deals with how the author motivates himself, focuses, faces his fears, and controls his mental energy in all aspects of his life particularly in triathlon.

If you are serious about getting 100% out of your body and enjoying training and racing in any endurance sport, read this book.

I have a confession to make. Mark was probably my least favorite of the Gospels. It seemed so disjointed at times. The author seemed to race from one event to the other, with seemingly little connection between events or tales. His descriptions and details seemed scant, with the other Gospels filling in the blanks. And there lies part of my problem in trying to figure the book of Mark out - my reliance on the other Gospels to help me interpret it, instead of reading Mark as though I was hearing everything about the life, death, and resurrection of the Messiah for the first time.

The authors of "Mark as Story" try to impress upon the reader the importance of understanding Mark on its own terms as a narrative. They offer four guidelines in this approach: (1) read Mark as a story rather than history, (2) read Mark independently from the other Gospels, (3) avoid reading modern cultural assumptions into the story, and (4) avoid reading modern theologies about Jesus back into Mark's story. With these guidelines in mind, the authors discuss the various elements of Mark, known in biblical studies as "narrative criticism" where tone, style, setting, plot, characters, etc. are analyzed. Sound like a college course in Literature? Perhaps. And thus this particular book may not be to everyone's liking. As for me, I can truly say that I have a much greater appreciation for the Gospel of Mark having read it as a work of literature in its own right. - Ronni

This fairly brief book provides a fresh and exciting approach to the Gospel of Mark. By respecting the integrity of Mark and encouraging the reader to attend to the details and style of this Gospel, the reader is allowed to experience anew the Gospel and find within its story the astounding character of Jesus.

Most churches teach "the gospels" as if they were one story told by someone named Matthew Mark Luke John. So it's very hard to read any one gospel as if for the first time. They all wind up sounding like random collections of sayings and miracles by Jesus leading up to Good Friday and Easter. What Rhoads and Michie do is to treat the Gospel of Mark as a work of literature in its own right, apart from anything else we know or think we know about Jesus. They examine Mark's rhetoric, settings, plot, and characters to see how he tells the story. In the process, they enable us to experience Mark's gospel in a completely fresh way. Now I'm waiting for them to do the same thing for Matthew, Luke, and John--especially John.

It's a great book for first year business students and all those who want to learn something about basic principles of macroeconomics and the influence it has on everyday business activities

In comparison with other macroeconomic texts around it should get 5 stars. It starts with a historical perspective of the crisis in economics at the time of Keynes, setting the picture for why anyone bothered to invent macroeconomics in the first place. It then rapidly proceeds to introduce the major schools of macroeconomics and to develop the relevant ideas and models. It is an ideal introduction for the interested or serious student and manages to be exciting as well as fairly comprehensive. If you're taking an introductory macroeconomics course, get this book instead of your text. If you're coming from outside the economics profession and have a mind of your own, this ones for you.

This is a classic Macro text used for many Intro to Macro-Econ.

I used a similiar text (many editions before) when I took my first econ class in college over 10 yrs ago.

This is a great book, easy to understand and fluid reading.

Thumbs Up!!!

Major League Losers considers the effect that professional sports teams have on America's communities. The book is primarily concerned with the economic impact that these teams have, especially on the area surrounding the stadium. Economic reasons are often the ones which are stressed when considering public financing of professional sports stadiums.

It is Rosentraub's hypothesis that the economic impact of these teams is miniscule compared with the opportunity cost of funding these stadia. The money that is used to build these playgrounds could be used to build a school, increase police capabilities, be kept in the taxpayers' pockets, etc. The revenues generated by the stadia cannot exist in a vaccuum. States and municipalities must decide what is the best use of public funds.

The data that Rosentraub puts forth would lead one to believe that these stadiums are not a waste of money, but not the best place to be investing public funds. Their economic impact is marginal at best, and often times the teams are just taking entertainment dollars away from other area businesses. Rosentraub's contention is that the people that go to the games would have spent their money at some other location in the city anyway as sporting events are just another form of entertainment on par with movies, theater, etc.

Instead, he contends that the reasoning behind the public financing is psychological. All cities want to be viewed as being "major league". There are only a few cultural meccas in the United States: New York, Los Angeles, and Washington. Other cities need something that can make their citizens proud. Most municipalities turn to professional sports. They feel that landing a pro team is the quickest way to gaining respectability as a major metropolis.

The book does go a little off kilter when discussing the supply and demand of professional sports teams. Rosentraub feels that the number of major league teams has been kept at an artificially low level thereby fostering a vicious competition between cities for the existing teams. This opinion doesn't take in to account the impact on the level of play that drastically increasing the number of teams would have. Already major league baseball talent is spread dreadfully thin and the addition of even three or four teams would cause tremendous harm to the game. Other than this contention, Rosentraub has put together an excellent case for refusing to fund these millionaire playgrounds.

By ANDREW CLINE Mark S. Rosentraub, Major League Losers: The Real Cost of Sports And Who's Paying For It: Basic Books, 1997, $27.50, 513 pages.

Within the past generation, the pro sports team owner has become one of the top threats to state and local taxpayers. He has achieved this position by hiring hack economists to conduct trumped-up economic studies purporting to show that new sports arenas will bring large financial returns to the general public.

In his new book, Major League Losers, economist Mark S. Rosentraub shows very persuasively how pro sports arenas do not generate the economic returns to the general public that the owners claim, and therefore public subsidies are not justified.

Major League Losers is more than an economics book, and Rosentraub more than an economics professor. The book is written not for the policy wonk or academic, but rather for the sports fan and the taxpayer. Rosentraub covers the issue from the perspective of a concerned citizen and avid sports fan who just happens to be an economist rather than an economist looking to win tenure.

Rosentraub, a professor at Indiana University at Indianapolis and an Indiana Pacers season ticket holder, begins his book by laying down a little background so the reader will not jump straight into a bunch of economic mumbo jumbo.

In the first chapter Rosentraub outlines in simple terms how a city's economy works and how professional sports fit into that economy. In the second chapter he gets into a bit of psychology by explaining why sports occupy so exalted a position that they can garner public subsidies when other, far more important industries cannot.

The next chapter covers the theory of supply and demand, or why all cities that want pro sports teams cannot have them. In this chapter Rosentraub serves up a history of the big sports leagues, showing how each formed and evolved and how each was designed as a cartel that would maximize owner profits by minimizing competition.

Chapters four and five get into the nitty-gritty of economic analysis. In them Rosentraub explains just how little pro sports actually means to a city's overall economy. Professional sports, the author shows, never make up more than one half of one percent of all jobs in any community in which they exist. Nor do they account for two-thirds of one percent of the total payroll of any community in which they exist.

Also, when it comes to generating job growth, pro sports produce jobs only in a very tiny area localized usually within the stadium's own zip code. There is no large ripple effect throughout the community. In fact, pro sports can sap jobs from outlying areas because people who would have spent their money on movies and restaurants in the suburbs will instead spend that money at the sports stadium, reducing business for suburban entertainment and food venues.

In chapters six through ten, Rosentraub uses the specific examples of Indianapolis, Cleveland, St. Louis, Toronto, Montreal, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh to show how little return taxpayers receive when they opt to spend tax money on pro sports stadiums.

Chapter eleven focuses on the fight between suburbs and center cities that occurs whenever communities try to land or keep pro sports teams within their boundaries.

In the last chapter, Rosentraub offers a quick prescription for how to avoid the subsidized disasters that have befallen so many communities that have caved in to the demands of sports team owners.

Major League Losers could have been a much shorter book. The educated reader will skim through much of the fluff to get to the meat of the economic discussion. But this fluff may prove important in explaining the situation to those serious sports fans who otherwise may tolerate subsidies to teams as a means of obtaining their favorite entertainment. The book clearly and simply achieves the author's objectives. It is a must read for all hard-core sports fans as well as all taxpayers.

Andrew Cline is director of publications at the John Locke Foundation, a nonprofit think tank in Raleigh, N.C.

In today's big-time professional sports business, the relationship of pro sports owners and public officials has become significantly intertwined, as more and more public monies are risked to keep or attract a pro sport franchise in a community. Author Mark S. Rosentraub has written a sober study of the complexities of this "welfare for sports owners" that will stand as the classic definitive study of this issue. Rosentraub thoroughly analyzes the economic complexities of public subsidies of pro sports, with his well-reasoned recommendation that public subsidies do not return on the investment at a level high enough to warrant the tremendous risk of the hundreds of millions that owners usually want. The details are all here on the fascinating stories of owners and public officials from the communities of St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Arlington, Texas, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Ontario, Toronto, Cleveland, and others. Rosentraub also explains the powerful, almost mythical interest of a community in a professional sports franchise, that helps to better understand this sordid joining at the hip of this business with a community. This is a solid, complete analysis of this very controversial topic that should be required reading by business majors, and especially mayors and other public officials who may think a professional sport franchise will "save" their community. Rosentraub should be called in, before they sink their precious tax dollars into this black hole. Look for the author to be in heavy demand on the talk show circuit and in open debates with owners. At almost 500 pages, Rosentraub's obvious hard work clearly shows his preeminent status as the play-by-play announcer par excellance of pro sports franchises.

I want to review the book about light

THE best picture book about NY: photographers managed to catch the beautiful light that makes New York so magical!

After reading many architecture and photography books about NYC I knew this book was a keeper when I noticed it at a used book store in Boston. I have yet to find a more visceral or beautiful collection of photos about the great city. Likewise, the collection of prose is equally captivating and informative to read.

The riches to rags to riches success story is quite interesting and sometimes even inspirational. The book is very easy to read. However, for an entrepreneur looking for practical tips or information it is quite useless. This is a good book to read for general inspiration and to lift the spirit only. Seek guidance elsewhere.

Good knowledge, enthusiam, and some hype. All and all a good pump for getting online and getting PC literate.

This book is extremely inspirational. Mark Bunting gave up a 100,ooo dollar job to reach his quest, as he called it. He realized yopu have to try no matter what and the risk paid off. He was a multi-millionare really soon. This book shows how he started with no knowledge and worked up, also explaining that you can do. A must have for sny aspiring entreptuears or money-seekers