A rather disappointing book with poor quality photos. If you like the movie stay away from this book!

This beautifully produced volume is a MUST HAVE for any fan of the film BARAKA, serious photography monograph collector or travel buff. The imagery is as varied as life itself. From the unspeakable horror of raging oil fires in Kuwait during the final days of the Gulf War to the contemplative beauty of a lone Tibetan Monk deep in meditative prayer. We see the inquisitive gaze of a group of Kayapo children in the Amazon jungle and the cold stares of armed Cambodian soldiers guarding a munitions storage area.

Mark Magidson, the film's Producer, has done a masterful job at capturing the beauty, power and mysteries of life, just as he and Director Ron Fricke did with the motion picture. Fricke firmly believes that nonverbal films like BARAKA must live up to the standard of great still photography which reveals the essence of a subject - not just the physical presence, but the inner workings as well. This volume is a great example of just that. The images in this book stand alone as a testament to the power of the still image and its ability to connect directly with the viewer.

Baraka translates as a blessing, or as the breath or essence of life from which the evolutionary process unfolds. This process is so visible in the book--and the attention to detail is most impressive and appreciated.

Two of the most striking images appear near the beginning and at the end of the volume. They are beautiful examples of night photography time exposures with glorious starfields and mysterious rock formations a glow, in Utah and Australia, respectively. They only begin to reveal the mystery and beauty of the seemingly unspoiled ancient Earth.

Do yourself and your book collection a favor and purchase this one today! Then go out and see the movie again...in these troubled times it becomes a very uplifting, contemplative experience.

If you've seen the movie this book allows the same visuals without the VCR requirement. If you want a quick, breathtaking travel fix this is the one. A coffe table book for ALL travellers

Lots of physics stuff that isn't too useful. Confusing chord charts(edge gets a bit dull after a while), not worth the money.

If you want to really understand the guitar as an instrument, you want this book. This is not for posers who just want to play Green Day covers. Although I could say it sometimes refers to musical terms the way a guitarist does instead of the way accepted in music theory courses, the information is generally correct and answers all the questions that no one else does. This book is aimed at the serious (and intelligent) guitarist. It is in pieces because I use it so much. The diagrams are something that you look at and don't get, then it hits you like a rock and you are hooked for the rest of your life. They are gold. The book is actually hilarious most of the time, but definitely steeped in technical information. A final word: if you really want to play, put down all those tab sheets and buy this book. If you actually read through it, it will change your life.

This book is one of the best, and I have gone through many. It is concise, to the point, and does not leave any mystery. Now I have to go buy the tapes that go with it. The book really does not waste time with stuff you don't need to know, like the "great staff" and how to read music. It uses pictures of the fret board...How else would I learn. It is not a book for rocket scientist, it is a book for someone who owns a guitar. Also try "Blues You Can Use" by Ganapes and "Guitar Handbook" by Denyer.

For years, I have searched for the ultimate Bette Midler biography - one that is chock full of never before heard or told anecdotes, a fresh perspective and insights into oft told situations or tales.

Mark Bego's book is the closest thing we've got right now to a definitive, somewhat linear bio, but it still leaves much to be desired.

I do appreciate that Bego (clearly a fan in his own right) takes the time to go in depth with Midler's albums, making sure every track is commented upon and giving us loads of quality info about the recording process. I love hearing about why certain songs were chosen, discarded, arranged the way they were, et cetera.

The most in depth album commentary in this book is in regards to Bette's *Songs From the New Depression.* The more I read about this lost possibility, the more curious I am to hear the material. It genuinely sounds like it could have led Midler's career in a completely different, more upward musical direction. I do hope Atlantic Records gives Klingman the master tapes back.

No other book has given me a clear picture of what Bette's days at the Continental Baths were like, and I am grateful for that. Such a vivid description of the place and the time. It must have been a ball.

This is also the first telling of Bette's life that gives an indication that Aaron Russo (Bette's manager in the 70's) and Bette were never romantically involved at all. However, the narrative seems fuzzy on whether or not that is entirely accurate.

The aspect of Bette's career that seems to get shortest shrift is her movies. Each one is given a full plot synopsis, which in my opinion, isn't a good idea, for it ruins the movies for newer fans or people who have not seen them. These plot synopses seem to be masking some glaringly obvious missing information. No 'tales from the set' are told. No comments from co-stars or directors (except in the Jinxed section) on what it was like to work with Bette beyond your standard "press-kit" comments.

Even so, there are still some interesting tidbits spread out here and there. One of them is that Anne Archer and Donna Mills where considered for the role of Hillary Whitney in Beaches!

One rather odd thing is the use of numbers in parenthesis after every single quote. I've never seen a device like that in a book, and it made me feel like I was reading a college term paper. Although, on the flip side, I appreciate the quotes are there -- it ensures a degree of accuracy and if I ever want to look up these articles, it's a good resource.

Also, there is serious need for a fact-checker / proof-reader here. Too many noticeable spelling errors, character or actor names misprinted or mis-spelled, etc. I don't want to blame the writer entirely, because this stuff should be checked before going to press.

All in all, I recommend this book, but more for the fact that there really isn't a quality Midler bio out there to compare it to. Perhaps there never will be, unless Bette decides to tell her own story.

After all this time you'd have thought someone would have informed Mr Bego that Billy Cunningham was a musical director more so than a piano player and that when he stopped playing for Ms Midler at the Baths he didn't exactly exit . Even after writing Cher If You Believe, he still doesn't know who Kenny (Claude )Sasha was and why the off Broadway run of French Dressing at the Village Gate (Top of the Gate) and Cher's Act had a lot more to do with the drag bar scene in "The Rose" than Bette' s wanting to be a legendary movie star. The sad part is by the time he revises the book again even more of sources he should have interviewed the first time around won't be with us.

This book which was first released in the 1980s by author Mark Bego gets updated and reworked here. It is impressive to see such a comprehensive scaling of the Divine's long career. Want to hear about some current projects like Bathhouse Betty and her films such as DROWNING MONA and the like, this is the book. I am someone who enjoys reading about others' perspectives on some of my favorite artists. I especially like to read and hear about recent endeavors. Because there has not been a Bette biography since 1997's spectacular BETTE MIDLER SCRAPBOOK and 1995's BETTE by George Mair, that was a long period of no coverage of some of Midler's material. Well, here goes. Even if one is not a Bette fan, one could still enjoy this biography which provides various aspects of the entertainer in a unique form.

As this story opens, Joe Melghrue is hesitant to proceed with a planned train robbery. Along with his partner, he has fallen in with an unsavory lot but they need the money, both being Confederate veterans with no stable work. Melghrue's worst fears come true when the outlaws decide to murder everyone on the train and when Melghrue refuses, they kill his partner and leave him for dead. The rest of the novel deals with the time-honored quest for revenge as our hero faces many obstacles in his journey for blood.

Lansdale's work, whether writing horror or mystery, always moves at a break-neck pace. With the author taking the reins of the traditional fast-paced Western genre, he delivers an extremely quick read loaded with action and memorable characters. As part of the Lost Lansdale series, Blood Dance is presented by the author as is. While I admire his warts-and-all approach, the roughness of the novel shows through in what I noticed were two very distinct sections of the book.

The first part of the book is very traditional and reads much like a Louis L'amour story. The action is fast and plentiful. While we are introduced to the character of Liver Eatin' Johnson, who was a real life frontiersman, his appearance does not take on the same pretentiousness as the later historical figures.

The latter half of the book has Melghrue interacting with Wild Bill Hickok and Custer at the Little Big Horn during part of his quest for revenge. Too often, when Westerns include true-life figure, they begin to read like a Forrest Gump movie. Lansdale falls into this trap here. Not only must our character meet these people but they must interact with them or save their lives, altering or predicting history. We are bombarded with historical facts about them and the result is characters that are not fleshed out as real people but more like caricatures.

We also have the Sundance here which is an Indian ritual portrayed in the move "A Man Called Horse" (remember that scene where he's hanging by tethers that have pierced his chest? Ouch!) Here the novel takes a little more supernatural turn. Not unusual territory for Lansdale but seemingly out of place after the more traditional Western feel of the first half.

Overall, I thought this was a good read that provided a strong entertainment value. But I would not recommend it for fans of the Western genre who have not been exposed to Lansdale. Lansdale fans, even those who don't like Westerns, will find the book interesting as a precursor to his later run of odd Western stories and the author doesn't let anyone down in the action department either.

As I said in my review of THE MAGIC WAGON by Joe R. Lansdale, I'm not really a big fan of Western novels, though I have read a few over the years. Because I'm now such a huge fan of Mr. Lansdale's writing, I'll read anything by him, no matter what the genre. BLOOD DANCE is no exception. It's one of his earlier Westerns that was written back around 83 or 84 and finally saw publication two years ago with Subterranean Press. Since I loved THE MAGIC WAGON so much, I decided to pick up a copy of this short novel, and I have to say that I definitely got my money's worth out of it. BLOOD DANCE takes place in the Dakota Territory, ten years after the Civil War, and is the story of Jim Melgrhue, an ex-Confederate soldier and Louisiana boy. When he and his best friend, Bob Bucklaw, decide to join a gang a train robbers, led by Beau Carson, Jim's instincts tell him that there's nothing but trouble around the corner, which proves to be the case. The train robbery turns out to be a fiasco, and when Carson orders the execution of all the passengers, Jim and Bob quickly decide to take a stand against the gang and its leader. Though they valiantly try to save the passengers, the gun battle that ensues leaves Bob Bucklaw dead and Jim seriously wounded. When Jim eventually comes to, he has to once again fight in order to save himself from a Sioux war party that's investigating the train and its dead passengers. Only through luck and the unexpected appearance of John Johnston the Crow Killer (think of the Robert Redford movie, "Jeremiah Johnson") does our protagonist survive. Thus begins the journey of Jim Melgrhue's quest for vengeance against Beau Carson and his gang of killers. As Jim heals from his wounds, he tags along with Johnston for a while, and then with a Crow warrior by the name of Dead Thing, who has his own score to settle against Carson. This leads to a Sundance in which Jim experiences a vision of his future. Before the path of revenge has been completed, Jim will try his hand at gold mining, save the life of Wild Bill Hickok, and find himself at Little Big Horn with General George Custer and three thousand Indians that are looking for a little payback. Like the late Louis L'Amour, Joe R. Lansdale does his research and incorporates historical fact with fiction, carefully weaving his adventurous yarn so that the reader doesn't always know what's true and what's created from the author's imagination. BLOOD DANCE is a quick read that can be done in a couple of hours. What makes the novel so entertaining is Lansdale's ability as a storyteller. He has a unique skill at being able to create characters that come alive with just a few short sentences, a dark sense of humor that can make even the most jaded reader laugh out loud, and an uncanny instinct for making any story sound interesting With Lansdale, the reader knows that he's going to have fun from the first page to the last. I find it hard to understand why more people don't know about this exceptional East Texas author. This man can write horror, action, westerns, serious drama, children's fiction, and even zany over-the-top adventure stories. Illustrated by Mark A. Nelson, BLOOD DANCE is a sure winner for those who enjoy a good Western novel and want to have a few hours of pure fun.

This is another in Subterranean Press's "Lost Lansdale" series. I really like this series so far. The first two that I've read, Waltz of Shadows and Blood Dance, have been very entertaining and satisfying. They are not perfect books, but that is not the intention. In the case of Waltz of Shadows, Lansdale simply decided not to publish it when he finished it years ago. Blood Dance, though, was an early Western novel that just had a lot of bad luck through multiple planned publications.

Blood Dance is pretty much a traditional Western. Lansdale stays within the structure of an off-the-drugstore-rack pulp-style Western yarn, which is what I think he set out to do. Lansdale readers, though, will recognize plenty of Lansdale's stylistic trademarks. The book has some very minor flaws, and I won't get into them for fear of spoiling anything, but they were for me very easy to forgive. Generally, this is a very polished piece of writing. The story pulls you right along, and Lansdale knows that it's all about the characters anyway, and there are plenty of interesting and well-drawn characters here.

I like that Lansdale resisted the urge to revise these "lost" novels (although I think he cleaned up Waltz of Shadows a little for publication). As a long-time fan, it's enjoyable for me to read an early novel, warts and all. Waltz of Shadows is not likely to be published again any time soon, but this book, Blood Dance, might be in paperback someday for those that miss this limited edition.

Perhaps the whole thing was about the style. I am not well aware of the new things in neoconfucianism added by Tason. But his spirits and style were just what the neoconfucianism at the time needed the most.

CHONG YAGYONG: KOREA'S CHALLENGE TO ORTHODOX NEO-CONFUCIANISM is a short study of the life and works of the Korean Neo-Confucian scholar and bureaucrat, Chong Yagyong, or Tasan (1762-1836). Tasan, his nom de plume, refers to a hill, "Tea Mountain", near Kangjin in South Cholla province, where Chong was exiled following anti-Catholic purges in the capital. Chong was a gifted and precocious scholar who became a trusted advisor to King Chongjo (r.1776-1800). His works were reputed to have been loved by Kojong, the last king of Korea.

This book surveys historically Tasan's life, the factions in the Korean royal court, and Tasan's Korean, Chinese, and Japanese influences, and critically analyzes Tasan's corpus of work. The author situates Tasan squarely in the Neo-Confucian tradition, but argues, that his arguments opposed the orthodox position, espoused by most Korean scholar-bureaucrats of his time, originally formulated by Chu Hsi. Where Chu tried to turn Confucianism into a metaphysical theory capable of competing with Taoism and Buddhism, Tasan, through analysis and philological research, advocated a return to a Confucian emphasis on ethics and political activism.

Besides Tasan's arguments, what is most interesting about this book, is how the author reveals the myriad influences in Tasan's intellectual development: Chinese, Japanese, Korean, even, possibly, Catholic Christian (although the evidence is ambiguous). Also, a picture of Korean political development is offered. Both these situate Korea in an international context. Tasan surely deserves a place in the history of philosophy, along with others alive in the world of his generation.

If only this book would have included more excerpts from Tasan's works in translation, it would be perfect. As it is, it is a slim volume, more a teaser than the final word.

This work is a important opportunity to activate the new discussions about the concept of "Sirhak" which have been used to categorize late Choson dynasty intellectual trends. Mark Setton's perspective is very new and striking. Especially, this work is the first attempt to locate Chong Yagyong's thought in the whole context of East Asian tradition of Neo-Confucianism. This work made a deep impression on me in that aspect.

When I first read this book, I could not help but wonder why the author sounded so angry! The entire text could have been written in 20 pages, but tends to drag on monotonously, repeating statements many times in the same aggressive tone. The tone and repetition of the text tends to lead you away from the few morsels of interesting and useful information, such as the wonderfully concise overview of basic chinese medicine that even a lay person could understand. It is such a shame that this book was so horribly written with it's truly advanced use of the English language, that it is difficult to follow, understand, and even pick up again to finish. This is no light reading, folks.

In the West, many people commonly assume that disruptions of the body are the exclusive domain of medical intervention and that disruptions of the mind and to be addresses primarily by psychological inquiry. This work is a discussion on the integration of the principles of Traditional Chinese Medicine and psychosomatics. It develops a dynamic model of health that acknowledges the connection of body and mind. this model is made practical by reference to patient assessment, diagnosis, and treatment.

Mark Seems Bodymind Energetics addresses the issue of our understanding of the "physical" and "psychological" aspects of health. Seem covers some of the historical background to the "body-mind" split in western thinking and the practice of medicine. He uses models of thought taken from studies of the early pioneers of psycho-somatics, and models developed from ancient Chinese medical texts to discuss this 'split'.

This is an extremely interesting and thought provoking work on the subject.

This book is a waste of money, there's almost nothing in it. It reminds me of the terrible "Presenting C#" book (although I will grant that it is much more accurate).

Any other C# book is a much better buy. For example, if you want a quick treatment get "C# Essentials" from O'Reilly. For learning C#, get Archer, Liberty or Gunnerson. For a complete application oriented book get Troelsen.

This book introduced me to C# and I found it to be an excellent read. It is filled with lots of interesting and useful information. Coming from a Java and C++ background I was already familiar with OOP and this book goes over many differences between the above OO languages. This book will only wet your lips as it does not go into the details of actual programming windows applications, etc. (there are other books for that). However it gives you a rich background into the language itself, the differences between it and others, overcoming certain restrictions to the language, and porting code to C#. If you are interested in quickly learning the basics of the C# language and the .NET framework then this may be the book for you.

Great intro to C#. It took only a couple days to read and yet it provided a insight into the language, the environment and the pitfalls one may encounter with C#. I recommend this if you want to gain a quick overview of C#.

I would have to agree with one of the other reviews here. Although it is well written most of the time, there are some mistakes. As of this writing I'm only through Chapter 1, so I can't speak for the rest of the book. But read on for some problems with this first chapter.

In the examples given by the authors they use commands that have not yet been introduced. While you can guess what the commands purpose is the authors should have explained it before they used it. Another problem is with the challenges in the first chapter. While the first four challenges are possible, the fifth is not if all your understanding is garnered from the first chapter. They ask you to write a program that is impossible to write without having read deeper into the book, specifically you need to use the 'if' command to write it. I also noticed while looking at the answer to this challenge in the appendix that there was a bug large enough that it would not have compiled if I had copied it.

Overall, from my experience with the first chapter, it's good, but be prepared to bang your head when the authors don't explain something.

Dear Amazon.com-browsing knowledge seeker:

If you read this book, you will find some great and very inventive sample programs. The problem is that in their zeal to present these programs, the authors failed to be certain
that the examples are free of data types not introduced in the
text explanations. THis is particularly bothersome when code dealing with objects is concerned.

I hope this comment is helpful.

your fearless reviewer.

I am a beginner to c++. I am currently inroled in a c++ class in college and I read this book along with the course book. It's a great help. When reading the book I can now understand what the teacher is talking about in lecture. It's also nice to be able to help others in lab. Most of the programs in the book are games. This is nice for someone who want to get into the game industry(like me). This is a nice book for a beginner.

This book was written by one of the best in the cardiac pacing field. The only problem is his dry and wordy compilation of cardiac pacing.

I purchased this book to assist me in cardiovascular schooling and found it to be a great book for gaining an understanding of the principles of pacemaker therapy. At times though, the text is a bit wordy and dry. However, I find it very useful for reading up on anything from the indications for both temporary and permament devices to post-implantation evaluation, complications, and interventions. Unfortunately, with the rapidly changing world of pacemaker therapy, this book may soon find itself obsolete. Hope for an updated edition.

It is about diagnosis of cardiac diseases with cardiac pacing