This is an impressive book for beginners who want to learn chess the right way. It is the best starting chess book on the market, a must have for everyone who wants to learn the game. I highly recommend it.

I have been teaching chess for 21 years and I have used many different books to help my students learn. This book works by far the best. It is very clear and very easy to understand. I also enjoy other works by the team Polgar and Truong on Chess Life and ChessCafe.com. They are best chess authors.

I really like this book. I use it to teach my 3 sons chess. I also use this book for school chess programs. It is so clear that anyone can follow and learn it at once. Great work! I highly recommend it!

I don't know what the reader from LA is talking about? Maybe he is jealous that this book is too good? This Polgar-Truong writing team is one of the best writing duo in America. They write great stuff.

I greatly enjoyed reading this resource, and finished it in a little over a week, despite its length! It is written in an easy style, but it still has lots of information about kids of all ages.

There are two types of parent who are probably *not* going to like this book. One is the "natural parenting" type, who is interested in home/birth center birth, attachment parenting, etc. The book is very biased in favor of hospital birth(a big drawback), and has little information about attachment parenting methods. Those of us with any interest at all in using some or all of these methods should be consulting other books as well. The second sort of parent who could dislike the book is one who has very strong views about spanking, which the book favors. Actually, this book takes much more space telling the parent when they should *not* spank their child, but for those who see any physical discipline at all as "brutality" or "violence", this won't be enough.

However, for the Christian parent who wants a single, mainstream reference work for the entire child rearing experience, the book has not only plenty of sound advice and counsel, but also extensive medical and safety information of the most practical sort. A great investment!

When it comes to parenting books, I've been there done that. I've read the "What to Expect" series, the "Girlfriends Guides," the Mayo health books, etc. What I've found is that each one does its own thing well: "What to Expect" is good at topical, "Girlfriends" is funny, Mayo is medical. But sometimes, I just get tired of so many books! What makes Focus on the Family's book great is that it manages to do so many things well that you can safely eliminate some of these others. In fact, I think it's the best and most comprehensive child care book on the market.

The guide is comprehensive because it covers children from birth through adolescence. I think this is an important distinction that many books overlook. Just because our children get bigger doesn't mean that they need less attention. Actually, some of them need even more attention in the teenage years than most any other time.

I also like the way that the book addresses all areas of a child: physical, mental, and spiritual. It discusses divorce, child abuse, depression, eating disorders, and sexuality, right along with all the more traditional topics. Perhaps more important, the guide discusses the values that are behind our philosophy as Christian parents. How refreshing to know that I can consult an even-handed book with a Christian perspective. Its tone is always thoughtful, educated, and respectful.

Some other noteworthy features are at the back. There is a very thorough reference section that is over a hundred pages long and lists most illnesses and medications. Behind that is an emergency section that covers bites, burns, bleeding, CPR, etc. Next there is an annotated list of additional resources for various topics, a very detailed index, and finally a series of growth charts, color drawings of the human body and photographs of different skin diseases to help you identify them.

All and all, this is an excellent and thoughtful guide no matter where you are on your parenting journey.

It is fantastic and refreshing to be able to look into one resource and find everything you would possibly need to know concerning child rearing. From shots at 24 months, to skin rashes with photographic examples of each, to the different temperaments found in us all, to behavioral patterns at 13 months or 13 years, it's all here in this one book. My wife and I refer to it constantly in the raising of our two daughters. They didn't teach it in high school or college, but the most important investment you will ever make, is in the raising of your children. This book will give you the confidence and guidance to do a great job, believe me you will not be disappointed with it. The most important feature, however, is the fact that the contents of the book concerning parental leadership, mentoring and guidance are all based on the sound information found in the instruction manual for the human race, The Bible. Enjoy this book, as you enjoy raising your children.

. . . to really achieve its full potential, this play needs to be acted out on stage. Still, highly excellent, involving twins, cross-dressing, love tangles, sword-fighting, secret marriages, music, disguises, mistaken identities, high speech, and lowbrow humour.

The entire play takes place in Illyria. In the main plot, Orsino is in love with Olivia, who unfortunately does not return his feelings. Viola is shipwrecked on the Illyrian coast, and dressed as a boy, comes to serve in Orsino's court, where she of course falls in love with Orsino. Meanwhile, in Olivia's court, some of her courtiers plan a cruel--but funny--practical joke against her pompous steward Malvolio. There is also a third plot later on involving Viola's twin brother Sebastian, who has been shipwrecked likewise. Naturally things get quite confusing, but, true to Shakespeare's comedic style, everything gets worked out in the end.

This is an enjoyable book to read, and the notes are very helpful. However, it is still better as a performance.

"Twelfth Night" is one of the famous romantic comedy written by William Shakespeare. Many critics said, "Twelfth Night" is the masterpiece among his comedy because his fully developed style and insight are in the "Twelfth Night", so it has special value and attractiveness.
There are four main characters in "Twelfth Night" ; Duke Orsino, Olivia, Viola, and
Sebastian. Duke Orsino who lives in Illyria loves Olivia, so every day he send one of
his servant to Olivia's house for proposal of marriage. However, every time Olivia
refuses his proposal for the reason that she lost her brother before long, so she is now
in big sorrow and can not love anyone. One day, Viola comes into Illyria. She and her
twin brother Sebastian are separated in a shipwreck and they are rescued by two
different people in two different place, so they think the other one is dead each other.
Viola disguise as a man and become a servant of Duke Orsino, and then she fall in
love with Duke Orsino. But, Duke Orsino loves Olivia and he send Viola whose new
name as a man is "Cesario" to Olivia for proposal. Unexpectedly, Olivia fall in love with
Cesario!! Therefore, love triangle is formed. In the latter scene, Sebastian also come into
Illyria, so the confusion getting worse. However, in the end, all misunderstandings are
solved and Cesario become Viola, so the four main characters find their love.
There are also four supporting characters in "Twelfth Night" ; Clown, Sir Toby Belch,
Malvolio, and Sir Andrew Aguecheek. They make the readers laugh through their funny
behaviors and comments in subplot.
"Twelfth Night" is very funny story and enjoyable book, so I recommend you.

I didn't read this particular version of Twelfth Night, so I'm rating the plot, not the editing. This book was the first play by Shakespeare that I read, and I loved it! It starts when Viola and her brother, Sebastian, are seperated in a shipwreck. Viola decides to disguise herself as a boy and work for Orsino, the duke. Orsino sends Viola to tell Olivia that he loves her. Viola does what he says, but she wishes she didn't have to, because she has fallen in love with Orsino! Then Olivia falls in love with Viola, thinking that she is a boy. While all this is going on, Andrew Aguecheek is wooing Olivia, who scorns him. Also, Maria, the maid, Sir Toby Belch, Olivia's uncle, and another servant write a letter and put it where Malvolio, a servant, will see it. The letter says that Olivia is in love with Malvolio. Malvolio immediately starts trying to woo Olivia. Maria and Sir Toby pretend to think that he's mad, and lock him up. Meanwhile, Sebastian comes to town with Antonio, the man who saved him from the shipwreck. Antonio gives him his purse and says that he must stay away from the city because he fought against the duke in a war. A few minutes later, Antonio realizes that he needs money for lodgings and goes to find Sebastian. In the city, Viola is being forced to fight Andrew Aguecheek for the right to marry Olivia. Antonio sees the fight and hurries to intervene. Orsino recognizes him and has him arrested. Antonio asks Viola for his purse so that he can pay bail, thinking that she is Sebastian. Viola denies having had a purse. Then Sebastian comes up. Olivia had found him and married him on the spot, and he, deliriously happy, had gone away to give Antonio his purse. On the way, he met Sir Toby and Andrew Aguecheek. When they try to force him to fight, he punches them and goes on. They come up too, bitterly accusing Viola. (No one has seen Sebastian yet.) Then Olivia comes up and speaks to Viola, who denies being her wife. Orsino becomes angry with her, thinking that she has married Olivia, and accuses her of treachery. Just as things are looking bad for Viola, Sebastian reveals himself. Then everyone is happy (since Orsino falls in love with Viola on the spot) except Andrew Aguecheek and Malvolio, who is later set free. The plot of this book is a little hard to understand, but it is halariously funny and makes for happy reading.

Having searched the market for a book that would appeal to me, I am pleased to be able to report that "Derivatives..." makes few attempts to over-complicate and confuse. Unlike many other books that dazzle the reader with closely argued attempts to build up a picture from first principles, Wilmott presents the world as it really is, with all its confusions and inadequacies. Having tried and failed to understand the mathematical underpinnings of the formulae I have to use on a a regular basis, it was refreshing to discover that there really was little coherence to the derivatives market (49 chapters!). I would recommend this without reservation to practitioners everywhere who need reminding what a beautiful chaos lies under the surface of their chosen field. Superb!

I myself find a hard time writing a review about this book, and thus not to be misleaded by the stars I gave. Perhaps what's preventing it from 5 stars is the nature of the task rather than the author's capability.

The book is so comprehensive such that it's going to be very difficult if not impossible to find the book with greater coverage on the subject. The level of discussion should be on the intermediate level or first-year graduate students. A good background on basic derivatives or mathematics ( algebra, differential calculus, and statistics) will proof sufficient in most of the cases to follow the mathematical detivations in the book. Working out the exercises at the end of each section will be a great pleasure to all the derivative students. Unlike many other text books which provided many difficult but interesting exercises but never the solutions elsewhere as if it's the author's intention to keep the secret with themselves forever, the Book's Instructor Manual with the solutions to all the exercises is separately available through the Publisher. However, I feel that the unexperienced readers should spend some time with a more directly accessible derivatives book such as Hull's classic ( Options, Futures, and Derivatives Securities ) before approaching this book. Once this is done, you'll realize that the Author knows the subjects very well and has his interesting ways to take you to a very heart of the concepts.

I think there are 2 limitations of this book that should be put forward. Some mathemetical concept on modern derivative pricing theory such as martingale or measure theory are only scantly touched throughout the book. Yet I have a good perception that it;s the Author's intention to follow his preferred PDE approach on derivatives pricing and to make a book more directly accessible to a practitioners i.e., derivative traders or researchers, rather than the full academic researchers. Also the treatments on interest rate through sufficiently comprehensive, is far from completion. However, the literature on interest rate derivatives is very farflung such that it should be treated in a place of it's own. I myself don't really look at this as a handicap on this book.

All in all, I can't find any good reason why this book shouldn't be on derivatives section shelf.

Derivatives is the best book I have read on derivatives theory and pricing. It includes clearly written and readable theory on derivatives pricing, from plain vanilla to exotic options. Worked examples using Excel or Visual Basic span the gap between theory and implementation, which is often overlooked in other textbooks. In terms of usefulness, I would compare it to Tuckman's Fixed Income Securities.

Edith Nesbit is a charming writer. She tells her story with wit and humour, and interjects sly digs that engender a wink and a smile, but while the premise is timeless and interesting, the prose is extremely dated, making the book a bit tedious to read for any length of time. Also, the ideas and prejudices exhibited by the characters date the material.

The five siblings of the title, who have found a Sand-fairy willing to grant them one wish a day, continually make silly wishes that get them into trouble. Their first wish is to be "as beautiful as the day". Right there you get a sense of the book's outdated charm. This is of interest more as a tribute to a talented children's writer of a bygone era rather than for its own sake.

I wanted to enjoy this classic, but I found it hard slogging through. That is just my opinion, however, but I'd suggest you read a bit of the text before purchasing it unless you're already familiar with, or particularly interested in, author Nesbit.

Caveat: The occasional black-and-white line drawings are by H.R. Millar, not the Paul Zelinsky watercolors promised in the Editorial Reviews section.

This book is about Cyril, Anthea, Robert, Jane, and their baby brother who discover a Psammead,
or Sand-fairy, who agrees to grant the children one wish per day.
Soon, their wishes start to turn quite unlike what they expected.
Then, an accidental wish has terrible consequences, and the kids
are faced with a hard choice: to let an innocent man be charged
with a crime, or to lose their gift of magical wishes.

I read this book in one day, and I thought it was pretty good.
This book turned out to be fairly interesting.
I would probably read "Five Children and It" again.

This 1902 fantasy, a gift from my parents when I was in fourth or fifth grade, features an irritable Psammead whom Cyril, Anthea, Robert, Jane, and their baby brother dig up in a sand pit. Then the magic begins. The sand-fairy does not like granting wishes, and his misshapen body with bat's ears and snail's eyes bloats when he does. The wishes, lasting only until sunset, all take unexpected, funny turns.

The sand-fairy and other personalities and Victorian details render the magic entirely real-world, believable. This was my favorite children's book and I relived the delight when I found a copy to share with my own children. That this volume is illustrated by one of my favorite people from one of my favorite families triples the delight.

The book is too challenging for independent reading for children under 10, but it's a great read-aloud for small children, as are the classics of Frank Baum, E.B. White and C.S. Lewis.

Edith Nesbit was like J. K. Rowling a single mother in need of a means to support her children. Her books in their era were as popular as Harry Potter in this one. Some of her observations are surprisingly humane. Nesbit's treatment of a clan of Gypsies, for example, transcends the deep prejudice of her time. Not to worry, the book is not preachy or teachy. It's just grand, eloquent fun. Alyssa A. Lappen

The book, I confess, is pretty good. The only problem that arises from it is the fact you just can't read it smoothly as you go along. The author doesn't take you by the hands to the world of vampires. He simply tells you that no matter what, they don't exist. He goes to medicine for the answer and he gets it. The book is well portrayed, yet the coherency is a bit lacking. The book is for scholars. Those interested in beliefs and folklore. If you're a fan of the fiction vampire, I suggest you don't hold this book. It ruins the concept of splendotr, grandeur and mystery of all those great characters. This book is for the non-believers. The scientific... Simply said... for humans

Anyone who has read Nina Auerbach's Our Vampires, Ourselves needs to investigate this marvellous book by Paul Barber, a rare scholarly study that is written with verve, wit, and charm. Barber reminds us that the undead of folklore have precious little in common with Bram Stoker's Dracula or Anne Rice's Lestat -- those are completely modern concoctions. The traditional vampire is, in fact, a corpse. And not a corpse in any too good shape, either! Barber includes more information about the body after death than you could ever have imagined, and yet somehow manages to maintain a jolly tone while he discusses the details of decomposition and other potentially gut-churning subjects. I laughed out loud at lines like these: "However tragic your death may be, it would be far more tragic if you were to take me with you." This is a great book!

If you like reading good non-fiction, this work is for you. Paul Barber started out doing research on vampire folklore, and learned that many of our burial practices and beliefs about death are related to that folklore.

This is not the book for people who think vampires -- in the Dracula-like Goth mode -- are real. This books explains why old beliefs in the nature of life were the foundation for a belief that people could rise from the dead and be naughty.

It might just change your appreciation of funeral customs, too.

Who thought that the man who brings us the underwhelming In Step interviews every Sunday could write such a fascinating autobiography?

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy his work for Parade -- it's a guilty pleasure! But his tale of life in Korea, during the forgotten war is an excellent read.

The Coldest War doesn't bore you to death with military minutiae and ancronyms -- James Brady was a reservist, not a career Marine. The author doesn't get bogged down in terminology, so the book flows easily.

The narrative is superb -- the reader (at least this one) feels as if he or she is in the trench shivering with Brady on his first ambush.

Highly recommended!

For anyone interested in learning more about the human experience of war, this is an unforgettable book. Expecting to avoid the futility of the draft by joining the Marine Corps right out of college, the author finds himself a young officer in Korea as a field officer commanding a rifle platoon. This memoir details what it is like to be a young, inexperienced, and frightened soldier on the ground when all Hell breaks loose. Like many of his generation, Brady discovers that time spent in trenches between episodes in combat are quite as burdensome as the firefights themselves, with too much time, too little comfort, and endless seas of ceaseless rain, snow, mud, and exposure to the elements for the uninitiated to wallow in.

Brady's account of the rapid education a naïve and untried young officer has to learn and accomplish to stay alive and in command as the fight erupts, evolves, and subsides. His description of the day-to-day experience of war in Korea is quite evocative, and he succeeds in spinning a very readable and entertaining introduction to the realities of life as a foot soldier. Defense of fixed-line trenches in a deadly barrage of enemy artillery is absolutely terrifying to the young marines, as are the long still nights, filled with a deceptive calm. The quick-changing extremes in Korean weather often provided additional challenges to the young marines, and he explains how the combination of sustained periods of cold with an eerie pregnant silence sometimes lulled the troopers into sometimes-deadly states of inattention. If war can be described as long periods of boredom punctuated by sudden explosions of murder and mayhem, then this book is a deadly accurate portrayal of the experience of war.

Too many of our contemporary citizens lack an understanding of the extreme nature of the experience of combat, and that periods of actual combat are usually short and staccato experiences that come with absolute surprise and subside just as suddenly. As important in understanding the enormity of the experience of war are the other elements; loneliness, boredom, and exposure to the elements. Under the most difficult of circumstances, ordinary human beings are called upon to make the most solemn and extreme sacrifices, and this book details the terrifying context in which all this unfolded in Korea better than anything else I have read on the subject. I heartily recommend this book, and hope it will be widely read.

James Brady's vignette, haunting, poignant, reflective, should take its place along side of William Manchester and John Keegan. The story he tells is not how it should have been, it's not even how he would have liked it to have been. It's like it was. Brady is like any other 19 year old, brash, filled with adventure, drunk on promise and the illusion of immortality. Then he signs up with the Marine Reserves if not avoid, then to postpone his own appointment with destiny. Unfortunately, destiny has a mind of its own, and a few years later he finds himself the Platoon Commander of a Marine Rifle platoon on Hill 749, in the winter of 1951, in Korea.

Brady doesn't judge. I like that most about his reflections on a horrible war in a freezing place. If you want to hang Truman, MacArthur, Eisenhower, and John Foster Dulles, this is probably the wrong book for you. It is brilliant but it tells only the story of one man-boy's experience placed in charge of 40 men in combat.

To some extent we look down on those boys. We judge them, forgetting that like us, they too were caught in the flotsam of other people's decisions. Although with most of us, the whole world doesn't subsequently judge us. War's change, the technology of killing becomes more sophisticated, sides change, enemies become friends, and bad guys become good guys. Frequenly we forget that it's the young men who take the fire. The greatest homily to Brady and the only self serving remark he makes would be truly understood by a few. When he leaves the fields where 54,000 died, he says, "I hadn't lost any men . . "

Brady reminds us that young men are faced with terrible decisions when politicians, frequently never in harm's way, put them into unexplained and perhaps unnecessary combat. We should not judge those boys. And we should not judge them after they become men. 5 stars. A sobering read.To Jim Brady, if no one told you, welcome home.

This is a great book. As someone just begining to think about a home business, this book was very informative. I had had a general idea of what I might do, but this book helped clarify it and even gave it a name. It also gave me some other ideas to toss around. Beyond that however, the book was great in letting you know how to get started, some of the pitfalls to watch out for, and an overall sense of what it takes to start a home business. The only down side I found to the book was the constant references to other books by the same authors to get more detail information on any given topic. It was very frustrating when I didn't have the other books. But I guess their sales tactic worked since I bought two more of their books! I haven't read them yet, but because of this book I am looking forward to it.

This was a great, informative book! If you are thinking of a home business, or already have one in action this is the book for you. I work from home, but what I got was added ideas that I can combine with my already existing business.

There are 100 ideas for computer based business. Each one has idea's and resources to help you get started. I found the explanation for each was very detailed and if you have any creativity what so ever you take it and go from the idea's listed.

This really was a very useful and resourceful book!

Finally a making money at home book that is worth buying! This is an outstanding, easy read loaded with ideas for everyone. The 100 computer-based businesses listed each come complete with resources to follow up on in addition to what to expect in the area of salary. Paul and Sarah Edwards seem to really have a knack for communicating what so many of us are looking for. Of course the book contains all of the important money and business issues as well. I highly recommend this book as a "one-stop-shop" on the subject.

My introduction to Kenzaburo Oe, "Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids" struck me with the force of a bamboo spear. With his beautiful prose (and the complementary translation by Mackintosh and Sugiyama), Oe paints his characters with the brush of traditional Japan but in the style of a contemporary miscreant. Throughout, the book conveys relentlessly brutal portraits of an altered, horrific reality.

From the moment the reformatory boys are introduced to the end of their abandonment and the narrator's final, fearful sentences, Oe drags the reader through the hell of his ambiguous setting. Pulled along with the narrator, his brother, and their reform school compatriots, the reader follows into the nightmare of a plague-infested village and their utter isolation. While the boys struggle to eke out their existence and build lives in their newfound freedom, one is constantly on edge awaiting the collapse of their delicate system. When, finally, the villagers return and the madness of the world indeed crushes their fragile independence, the reader emulates the boys in their sense of relief and subsequent betrayal.

One of Oe's first novels, the deft manipulation of the reader's emotions and interactions between the characters promised great things for the young writer. As I begin another of his books, I cannot help but agree that he deserved his Nobel.

I was entranced by this little book. I am new to Oe, but found the direct style stimulating. The images are strong and painful. The sense of tragedy is palpable (and seems to have pervaded the author's own life); but where there is tragedy, there must be lost beauty - and Oe communicates the beauty as well.

I'll read more of Oe's works.

This was the first book by Oe that I have read, and although it's probably not one of his better known books (he wrote it when he was just 23) I found it very powerful and insightful. The story itself reminded me a bit of William Golding's Lord of the Flies (which was actually written a year AFTER Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids was published). The major difference I found between the two books was the difference in where the authors placed the evil forces in their book: for Golding, the evil (the gaping void, the mouth of the "Lord of the Flies) was inside of each individual. For Oe, the evil was in the system, the outside pressure from society on the group of young boys. When outside forces intrude in Golding's book, chaos ends and civility is restored. The opposite happens in this book.

Additionally, Golding's tale is an extremely universal one. The boys in the book happen to be English, but there's no reason why they couldn't be American, Japanese, Brazilian, etc. On the other hand, Nip the Buds is written with specific regard to its setting: wartime Japan. Oe himself is surprised by his worldwide appeal: he says he writes to his fellow Japanese, his own generation in particular. Several of the themes, including that of heartless, fickle villagers, is common to Japanese fiction (Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai" and Abe Kobo's "Woman in the Dunes" come to mind instantly). This book in general is written with obvious scorn for senseless violence and specifically, Japan's role in World War II. This is not to say that Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids can only be appreciated by elderly Japanese people (I certainly am not in either category). But, as is often the case with Japanese literature, it's very important to try to understand the environment the author was living in and commenting on at the time.

Oe's writing is supposed to be a bit abrasive to the Japanese eye, but in translation at least, it was straight-forward and simple to read. It would be easy to call Nip the Buds a graphic book, but journalistic might be a better term. This book is told through the eyes of a youth who has seen it all. He doesn't link ideas such as love and sex or violence and killing, but often treats them as completely separate ideas. Despite the callousness in this book, there is a lot of emotion as well. The reformatory kids' bond is solid (until the end), and the tie between the narrator and his younger brother, and the narrator and the girl is very real and vivid. Seeing these bonds wrenched apart one by one until the narrator is completely alone at the end is part of the reason that Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids is such an amazingly powerful book. Oe has created a truly unforgettable work.