The authors attempt to portray financial strategies that many CPA's and financial planners agree are questionable if not illegal.

One of the easiest to read estate planning books that I have read. I recommend this book for anyone with a taxable estate that needs to understand the issues/concepts of estate planning.

I was looking for financial planning advice that was not intimidating and easy for someone not in a "money & numbers" profession to understand. I found just what I needed in this book. The authors provided information in a common-sense, conversational manner. It was arranged so I could find exactly the topics that apply to me and my family. I found good advice, answers I was looking for and learned alot along the way. I was pleasantly surprised that a subject I had always veered away from could really be presented in such a "user-friendly" format.

This is a good book for reviews, esp. if you hate those dense radiology textbooks. Everything is in outline format, with cartoonish illustrations. The 3rd edition is coming out at end of November 2002.

This is the best radiology review book I have seen. Easy to read and comprehensive with helpful diagrams and charts. No radiology resident should be without this book.

Pefect companion for the radiology resident to take to lectures or conferences. Know this book and you will have a great fundamental working knowledge in radiology. Supplement by reading more comprhensive books in each subspeciality.

Mark Rudman's poetry is very distant. Whenever I read his poems I feel like he's keeping something very important from me, like the point.

I'm going to have to contest that as large as this book is, it seems a little moronic to try and sum it up in a one-sentence review, somewhat wittily titled. That is why I didn't find what was on this page, review-wise, "helpful." Mark Rudman's book is exploratory, an array of forms, and of the voices heard in them. You get the feeling you've never heard ideas before in a poem, then you realize you've never heard ideas expressed like this in a poem. As much as is implicit in Hart Crane is found here in dialogue, as much as Robert Lowell chisels, Mark Rudman pieces together. "Venice is a mystery beyond any solution," is only one of the epigrams you can pull out of "Provoked..." if you just pass through it, and admire for being succinct, yet broad enough to suggest the intuitive grasp behind the rest of the book's inquisitions. Altogether I wouldn't give "Provoked" five stars because it suggests, as great works should, some feeling...that there's more.

One should do himself/herself a favor and read PROVOKED IN VENICE, the third installment of Mark Rudman's exceptional and audacious trilogy. One finds deft lyrical poems distinguished not only as fine parts collected in the whole of a book, but also for their thematic progression that affords an extremely rewarding read. This is a book rich in allusion and cultural reference, but is ultimately marked by the elementary capacity to learn through experience. An extremely capable book that deserves reading after reading...a shame it didn't win the Pulitzer last year.

Cowell's book does a great descriptive job, in the sense that it gives lots of data on various aspects of this language.
The data is almost untouched: If you know a bit about modern theories then you can easily ignore the theoretical aspects (old terminology etc) hence its a great place to collect unbiased data.
If you're into language learning/teaching, i dont recomend it as a textbook for SA. Its so old fashioned, it misses lots of important points which are sometimes very obvious.

I tried to use this book before I traveled to Syria and found it difficult to use. However, after being in Syria for two months and acquiring a basic knowledge of the dialect, I picked it up again and benefited from it greatly.

The strong points of the book are that it is very comprehensive in grammar, vocabulary, and pronounciation. However, it has several drawbacks. First, it is not organized like a textbook. I often found it difficult to find what I was looking for and one should not attempt to read it cover to cover. Second, it is too comprehensive for a novice. Third, it uses a lot of lingustical terms. I found that I would read a section and not get much out of it, but when I came back to it later, after I had improved my Arabic, I would learn a lot from the same section.

I would highly recommend this book to someone who meets all of the following criteria:

1. Has a solid foundation in Modern Standard Arabic
2. Has a basic understanding of the Syrian or another Levantine dialect.
3. Is serious about learning Syrian Arabic and wants to become proficient. If you just want to get the basics this book is not for you.
4. Does not plan to use this as a textbook, but plans to use it as a reference or as a supplement to a class, speaking with a friend, or to another book.

As a note, A Dictionary of Syrian Arabic: English-Arabic is an even better book and makes a great companion to this.

After studying this specialized philological book, which I borrowed from foreign library, I think that it is suitable, with its formal and contents structure, only for academic study. (I study latin philology and so I was trying to study syrian language as a self-taught person, because I am interested in studying of ancient languages. I did like this grammar-textbook of syrian language very much, but unfortunately I don't have it now. I had to give it back.) I consider it very clearly arranged a understandable.

Now that fantasy RPGs are looking for new cultures to exploit, Russia has finally come into its own. Mystic Russia is, as the back of the cover states, about "...Russian Myth, but given that ol' Rifts® twist." It does a servicable job of bringing Russian monsters to life, and to a lesser degree, the O.C.C.s of Russian folklore.

The monster section is the best part and obviously the primary reason for the book, as they're placed in the front (which seems peculiar to me). Most are pulled right from Russian folklore, but a few seem like someone thought the picture looked cool and threw in some statistics for it, like the Demon Claw. Of particular note are the Koshchei (remember that guy from the AD&D Monster Manual II?) and the Kaluga Hag on page 27, my vote for what the Blair Witch looks like. The artwork throughout the book is above par.

Speaking of witches, as usual, this book heavily emphasizes that magic isn't real and neither are witches. Unless you are a practicing witch, in which case, please don't be offended. Mr. Siembedia points this out on page 1. And page 10. And page 72. And 73.

Perhaps the biggest flaw of all the books Mr. Siembedia writes are the finger-wagging, condescending quips that are littered throughout the rules. For example, on the topic of the evil Necromancer as an O.C.C., he advises to "...please respect the G.M.'s decision and move forward with the game." Move forward with the game? We were in the middle of an argument and the author's narrative made us stop, turn to that passage, and suddenly realize we should all just "move forward with the game" and stop arguing about the rules? This kind of condescending blather is presumably due to the younger target audience, but I'm sure they find it insulting too.

The Pact Witch, Hidden Witch and Old Believer O.C.C.s are interesting looks at Russian folklore and magic, although occasionally the spells are so specific as to be of questionable value (spoil water, curdle mlik, spoil wine, and spoil eggs could probably be grouped under spoil food). The Necromancer and Fire Sorcerer are reprinted from other Rifts books. It's disconcerting to see (NEW!) in front of the Bone Magic section. So the rest of the spells aren't new? Of all the O.C.C.s, the Mystic Kunzya stands out as truly unique, super-smiths with a penchant for super weapons. Super-powerful unbalancing weapons, but hey, you don't play Rifts for game balance anyway.

The Gypsy section is suspiciously generic. While the first crop of O.C.C.s delve into very specific spells of limited usefulness, the Gypsy section is devoid of detail. Professions like the Chovihani are missing completely, unless you use the Hidden Witch, which is not what Chovihani were about. This would be a perfect place for such spells as steal liver and a variety of thief protection spells that Chovihani were known for.

The last section seems like an afterthought about Sovietski tanks and war machines. This is Mystic Russia, right?

All in all, this book is a servicable resource for most role-playing games. However, as a Rifts supplement, it's fluffed out with a lot of material in other books under the guise of being reprinted for the "player's convenience."

This book is an average supplement for the RIFTS role-playing game. I own most of the supplements for RIFTS and I don't use this one too much in my campaigns. Most of my players have shown only marginal interest in the contents of this book. It is an okay companion to the Warlords of Russia worldbook, but otherwise probably not worth the price of the book. This book is similar in character to the England world book. There is a lot of information about the folk lore of the region with a few characters thrown in. If you enjoy reading world books just for the information, then buy it. If you are looking for a world book for Russia, get Warlords of Russia instead.

This book is an excellent book for all Rifts players. In most of my campains I have used this book to make NPC villans and also it is an excellent world book for choosing player characters. This is one of my favorite Rifts world books out there along with Warlords of Russia another excellent book.

this book was written by an author well known for writting about the NHL, hockey. soccer and hockey are worlds apart, the book seems aimed at american audiences who do not know much about soccer, actually do not know anything about soccer.
the book contains no real facts, it is like a summary of ronaldo's life, news i could get off tabloids.
what really frustrated me though is how the author keeps calling a shot a punch! if you strike the ball it can be called many things, shot, kick, fired, scored even blasted, but for gods sake not "Punched" punched emplies using your hand, nobody used their hands in soccer..............except ofcourse the goalkeeper, which by the way is called goal tender in this book (its the hockey thing i tell you)
overall i think i've wasted my money, the book is a disgrace to one of the worlds best strikers, it is written in a horrid way as well, and worse off really has no solid facts, no why, where when. just a brief summary.

this is a great buy for soccer lovers everywhere! It leaves you feeling like you really know Ronaldo! GET IT! YOU WILL BE BEGGING FOR MORE!

A great book!! RONALDO IS FAR MORE BETTER THAN maradona

This is one of the worst possible books on the very important subject of positional play. It's even questionable if it should be titled Positional Play. A more appropriate title could be "Yusupov is my Hero." That's what the book, to a large extent, is : nauseating praise of the great Yusupov, whose greater achievement in chess was to play second for the mediocre Anand(one of the many Kasparov's "Bogoljubows.")The book is a mess. When positional concepts are explained at all, they are done so in a haphazard fashion: there's no listing, classifying, and defining them. You have to apprehend them through the author's comments on the game(Kotov's "Play like a GM" is much better). Since the author didn't have much to say, he stuffed up the book with things that either are not of primary importance to positional play or,worse, have nothing to do with it. To wit: there's a chapter on "New Ideas in the Dutch Defense." Can you beat it? Another one on "You can't manage without combinations!" In a book on positional play!And what about "opposite-colored bishops in the middle game"? Much more important than open line, backward pawns, isolated pawns, don't you think? Well, stay away from this mess if you're smart.

The reader from Brazil has noted that this work is not a primer on positional play (for that, see Nimzovich's *My System* or Euwe and Kramer's two-volume *The Middlegame*). And I would agree that some of the material isn't overly thematic, either.

However, there is much of value in this book: the discussion of prophylactic thinking, for example, raises a topic of fundamental importance in the formation of a strong chessplayer. And to discuss briefly the three chapters ridiculed by the Brazilian reviewer: the section on not managing without combinations is really a short addendum to the section on opposite-colored bishops in the middlegame. And the latter is an *extremely* worthwhile chapter, particularly for those of us who learned that opposite-colored bishop endings have strong drawing tendencies and just assumed the same would be true of the middlegame. I have used this chapter a number of times with my own students, and have benefited from it as well.

Finally, the chapter on the Dutch Stonewall is a wonderful case study for illustrating positional play. The Brazilian reviewer seemed unhappy about this, but elsewhere in his review suggested that the isolated pawn should have been covered. Well, isolated pawns don't arise in a vacuum; they arise from particular openings. So why not cover a different sort of pawn structure, especially given that treatments of the isolani abound? I should add that one need not play a particular opening to benefit from knowing something about it.

In conclusion, if you're looking for a middlegame primer, then look elsewhere. But if you're looking for a book that will broaden your knowledge base and offer some new concepts with which to approach the game, then this is a book well worth considering, particularly for USCF 1600-1700 and up.

It has long been known that Dvoretsky is the world's to chess trainer; he has played an integral role in the development of such strong players as Dolmatov, Yusupov, Zviagintsev, and Kramnik. This book reveals much of his wisdom considering positional play, in a very practical format. Honest and informative, Dvoretsky teaches not of the fundamentals of a position but of how to approach positional problems in general. Especially interesting is the chapter written by GM Bareev on what decision making is genuinely like at the top. An excellent book!

I read in anticipation to learn why a strong and powerful man such as Josh Gibson would die at the young age of 36. Yes, there were references to his drinking and drug use. There was mention about him possibly having a brain tumor. That's where the book missed the point. If it was a brain tumor, the author simply skated the issue by saying that the record keeping in the 40's left something to be desired. Certainly there were people to interview who were affiliated with the hospital where he stayed and was diagnosed. I think a stronger case for or against a brain tumor should have been made by the author instead of glossing over the matter. Way too much detail of the balls and strikes of games was given. Who cares about that stuff? I wanted to know about Josh the man and got some of that, but not nearly enough. Page after page was filled with box score details that were meaningless for the most part. If he truly had "many women", who were these people and did any other than Hattie and Grace play a major role in his life? Lots of questions and few answers from the author. Sorry!

It's easy to see why this writer also wrote a book about Satchel Paige. Their careers are so intertwined, he already had the research. And, in fact, you could almost call this a history of the Negro Baseball League.

The negatives to the book are that it early reads somewhat like a rehash of newspaper articles. The author was forced into this because the two primary sources were the weekly black newspapers and "embellished" word of mouth. The set-up is a little long on the history of the two Pittsburgh teams that Josh played for but since this rivalry was so intertwined with Josh's history, it was almost necessary.

The positives are that this is a classic "tragic hero". Humble beginnings and tragedy, develops into a tremendous player, personal flaws erode his skills, and then he has a young, controversial death. When you overlay that with the rumors and embellishment of his accomplishments, it's easy to see how the legend has grown. The author did a good job of balancing legend with documentable evidence helping the reader draw a conclusion on the stories that may be overstated exaggerations.

This is a great story and a very good read I enjoyed. Obviously, Josh Gibson and Satch Paige paved the way for Jackie Robinson and have their place in baseball history. I STRONGLY encourage you to watch "The Soul of the Game" on HBO which takes the history of Paige, Gibson and Robinson and overlays the facts into a reconstruction. It was one of the best movies I have ever watched and never fails to draw you emotionally into the story. This book and it's careful research, allowed me to realize virtually every scene in the movie was drawn from some fact and not an overstatement.

Mark Ribowsky has researched his material and subject very well. A very powerful but sad message comes from this book. Josh Gibson had tremendous and unlimited power and potential. As a victim of a racist America of that time, we will never truly know just how great he could have been. A sad epitaph exists for all Negro League Stars...Statistics are terribly lacking and wrought with inconsistencies. More often than not we are left to the colorful imaginations of those that were witness to this era. No question, they were all highly talented. No question, they were robbed and we were robbed. Josh Gibson is about as poignent a subject as anyone. Such a shame! Thank you, Mark. Thank you for at least allowing us to have a glimpse at what it was like for Josh and many others of a bygone era. It was not an easy time for them. Josh was the one that was hardest hit by the climate. The truth is known, it is ugly, but it is known.

This book is very negative in presenting Poland and its culture. Every time the author mentions something worth visiting, it is with reservations and he makes sure to diminish it in some way by subtly bringing negative aspects or comparisons (or questioning Polish origins of it.) Makes you wonder what were the reasons for writing this book. Many names are misspelled and prices not very accurate, especially for higher priced hotels and restaurants. Lonely Planet's Poland is much more enjoyable and accurate.

Don't want to sound like I'm shilling for Amazon.com, but if you're going to be in Poland for more than a few days, I would recommend both the Rough Guide and the Lonely Planet Poland guides.

Both the strength and the weakness of the Rough Guide is that it is written by a Western European (or is he a North American?) who experiences Poland in a way I assume would be similar to most readers of English-language guides. That means sometimes he's sarcastic and dismissive when he shouldn't be. It is true, what other reviewers said about his tendency to question the essential Polishness of towns, people, etc. There's about 900 years of propaganda behind a lot of this, and I doubt the author is conversant with that history. On the other hand, his general reactions to things -- the beauty of Krakow, bad first impressions of Warsaw, the horror of Auschwitz, etc. -- were similar to my own reactions.

I have found the Lonely Planet guide to be generally the more accurate of the two on the mundane details. It's also more balanced in its interpretations, though that is a matter of perspective. The author is a Pole, and his superior knowledge and understanding of just about everything both books cover is pretty evident. In no way is the book written from a crude, nationalistic standpoint, but he nevertheless doesn't quite connect to the reader in some vital way the author of Rough Guide Poland does. Maybe it's because he writes as a native rather than a sardonic ex-pat. If you're buying just one Poland guidebook, go with Lonely Planet.

This guide had extensive information on Poland, including coverage of many small towns omitted from other books. It is much more thorough than Lonely Planet. It also includes more information on sites of Jewish interest, which Lonely Planet virtually ignores. Perhaps that is why the other reviewer considered it a negative book.

As with most guides geared to a budget audience, information on upmarket hotels and restaurants is limited at best. However, there is much more detail of things off the beaten path than one would find in a more upmarket guide.

I'm sorry to say, but I found this book completely boring. Initially, from reviews (other websites), I thought this book would provide an interesting and narrative approach to a subject matter which is hotly debated in Japan, in regards to their origins. But as I read, I could not keep myself from becoming easily destracted and sleepy. This book was written with it's target audience to be graduate students or professors, or something of that sort. Definitely not common folks like me who simply has a personal interest in the subject matter. Don't get me wrong, I am currently in college, and nobody's going to doubt my ability to read and understand English. But there's a difference between normal English, and English which is intended for people who understand big words and hard-to-understand grammar. This book is for the latter group of people.

I cannot judge the content of this book particularly, for I could not get myself to finish it. Or even get halfway for that matter. But academically, it probably holds up in being a book which can be useful. This book is simply not for those of us who doesn't possess an extensive vocabulary, or can tolerate overly analytical literature. Most of the content seems to be nothing but comparisons and contrasts of past and current findings in genetics, anthropology, and archeology.

While it's probably one of the rare books that discusses the origins of Japan, that is also provided in English (most books are never translated or brought outside of Japan), most of you will probably find the text too hard to read and/or follow. Therefore, while somewhat difficult, you should probably find another book which is more interesting and easier to comprehend. This book is just too boring.

Fans of Japanese archaeology and pre-history may like this book. The book covers the conflicting academic accounts of the early migrations of Yayoi and Jomon peoples in pre-historic Japan. If you are very well-versed in these subjects you may well find much to interest you. There is a great deal of commentary of the different academic interpretations of how the Japanese people have come about from different populations that may have entered Japan from the Korea, China, and from the islands to the south.

Having said that, I got completely bogged down in the middle of the book, which gets mired in excessive details and charts referring to various stone implements unearthed and their relation to Yayoi and Jomon culture. Unless you are extremely interested in these things, you can comfortably skip to the final part of the book which actually contains some of the authors own conclusions once he has surveyed dozens of other academics' theories.

This book is certainly to be recommended to the academic but should be avoided by the casual reader interested in Japan. I have yet to finish the book 6 months after purchasing it.

This book is excellent for those who want a survey of Japanese archaeological literature for the Jomon and Yayoi periods. The author reviews the development of archaeological theories in Japan, as well as among the few Western scholars specializing in Japanese prehistory. If you don't know much about Japanese archaeology, and especially if you don't read Japanese and can't go to the primary sources, this book is a great place to start.

Although the title sounds postmodern, in fact this book is cultural-historical in its emphasis. The author advocates a multidisciplinary approach to the question of Japanese ethnogenesis and supports his opinions with an extensive bibliography.

Particularly interesting to me is the way that (according to the author) Japanese archaeological theory has mirrored the nation's recent political history. Too bad archaeologists so often fail to be reflexive about the history of theory in their OWN countries.